


Whole Into Parts

by MHammerman



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Drama & Romance, F/M, Love Triangles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23453323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MHammerman/pseuds/MHammerman
Summary: Together at last, Kitty and Kurt are enjoying some of the best months of their lives. But with the emergence of the mutant cure and the return of Kitty's ex-lover Peter Rasputin, will history catch up with them? Thankfully, X-Men are used to taking chances, and great at defying the odds. Continues "Parts of a Whole" and "A Different Sameness."
Relationships: Kitty Pryde/Kurt Wagner
Comments: 67
Kudos: 15





	1. PART ONE: Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Preamble: I've been getting back into X-Men comics lately, which has inspired me to shine up some of my old fics. This is a significant re-write of a story I originally published several years ago on ff.net. The first version was entirely too sad, and this version is considerably less so. There are still some intense emotional moments, but no character deaths, and no obvious trigger warnings (there are some descriptions of comic book canon-based violence and trauma, but nothing especially realistic). And despite the title, everything wraps up the right way, with our lovers where they should be—together :)
> 
> You don't have to be intimately familiar with all the ins and outs of X-Men comics to read this story; I tried to make things as "new reader friendly" as possible, and events could take place in many different eras. Yet for those interested parties, there's a note at the end of each chapter about any comics that were referenced in a significant way. Continuity-wise, I'm considering the first arc of Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men and the 2004 Nightcrawler solo series as happening at the same time. It's a minor timeline bend, but worth it for the sake of the story, I promise!
> 
> This story is part 3 of a trilogy. I'd recommend reading "Parts of a Whole" and "A Different Sameness" first. Or, if you want to jump right in here, you can always check them out later :) As always, reviews are great, but most of all enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer #1: I don't own the X-Men or make a dime from imagining their between-panel exploits.
> 
> Disclaimer #2: My heroes always practice consent and safe sex.

**Whole into Parts**

**PART ONE**

**~ Prologue ~**

_**Then…** _

Amid the darkness of the bridge, the flash of passing headlights offered Kitty flickering glimpses of the backseat of the car. Amanda was pressing Kurt into the corner of the seat, tilting his fedora up his forehead as she sealed her open mouth against his, her fingertips trailing down the lapel of his trench coat.

"Gross!" Kitty protested. She covered her face with her hands, but left a gap between her fingers, right eye still watching the backseat through the passenger's side mirror.

When they transitioned from the tunnel into the more dependable illumination of the city that never sleeps, Amanda dutifully peeled herself off Kurt's chest, smiling dreamily as she collapsed back into her own corner.

"Whew!" she exclaimed, wiping a dramatic hand across her brow. "Mr. Wagner, you do go on…"

Kurt grinned at her, fang-tipped teeth flashing brightly. "You're not so bad yourself, Ms. Sefton."

"Gross!" Kitty repeated. She turned to Peter in the driver's seat, pleading, "Can't you tell them to keep their hands off each other, at least until I fall asleep during the intermission?"

"But I thought you _liked_ the opera, Katya."

"I _do_. But not when I have to chaperone _this_ clown," said Kitty, tossing an incriminating thumb in Kurt's direction.

"Chaperone!" Kurt echoed. "You're letting this official X-Man status go to your head a bit, hm?"

"I'm not the one necking like a teenager in the backseat!" Kitty shot back.

"Too bad for you," said Kurt, winking at Amanda, who blew a kiss back at him.

"Argh!" Kitty grumbled, slouching into her seat and knotting her arms over her chest.

"What does she see in him?" Kurt inquired, looking deliberately back and forth between Kitty's frown of annoyance and Peter's frown of concern. "I mean, when I'm _right here_ …"

"Some people have no taste," Amanda agreed, shaking her head in mock lament.

Kitty rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right. I mean, even if you get past the _looks_ …"

"Katya!" Peter chided.

Kitty ignored him. "… there's still the scintillating _personality_ to contend with."

"Ha!" Kurt lunged forward to plant a lightning-quick kiss on Kitty's cheek, causing Kitty to squeal and aim a half-serious elbow at his already-withdrawn face.

"Try that again," she warned, spinning to glare at him, "and you'll have to do your kissing without _teeth_."

Kurt merely grinned at her threat. "Well, since I'm _taken_ , anyway, you could do worse than Piotr, here."

"Kurt…" Peter cautioned. "Do not antagonize her."

"I wouldn't dream of it. Just stating a fact."

"Oh look at that we're here," Kitty declared, loudly enough to stop the conversation in its tracks.

Peter pulled the car up to the curb outside the main entrance to the theater, and Kurt and Amanda got out. He addressed Kurt through the open window. "Kitty and I will meet you at the theater, Kurt, after we park the auto."

Kurt took the opportunity to favor Kitty with a final, mischievous grin. "Don't you two get distracted along the way."

"Kurt!" Kitty cried, face flushing. "We _wouldn't_!"

"Pity. I would. Hurry up though, the show's about to start."

As Peter pulled the car away, Kitty's eyes followed Kurt and Amanda into the courtyard. To avoid using his image inducer, Kurt was well bundled up, his long coat tied tight, his hat pulled low on his forehead. Yet Kitty was sure his tail was acting up under his coat, twitching at Amanda's innuendos and tickling her body secretly when the chance arose.

Peter's rich, accented voice reined in her galloping thoughts. "Katya, you should not tease Kurt so."

Kitty whirled at face him. " _He_ started it! He _always_ starts it."

"He starts things because he is insecure," Peter said. "And with Kurt and Amanda… Things have not always been easy for them."

Kitty knew Peter's cryptic words were offering her a glimpse into the adult world; since she joined the X-Men, such glimpses had been occurring with ever-greater frequency. Try as she might, however, Kitty found she lacked the tools to know exactly how she should live up to Peter's advice.

"Okay," she agreed. "But if he's insecure about the way he looks, why does he draw _attention_ to it?"

"To make it seem like he does not care."

"But… he really _does_ care."

"Da. Is that not obvious?"

Kitty blinked. It wasn't particularly obvious—not to her, anyway. At a loss, she decided to turn the conversation toward something she thought she _could_ understand.

"And you, Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin," she said, tongue curling deliciously around the exotic sounds of his full name. "What do _you_ care about?"

"I care about my friends," Peter replied, straightening the car in the parking spot. "And I care about—"

Kitty silenced him with a chaste kiss at the side of his lips.

"Yes?"

"Come," said Peter, eyes serious, cheek reddened. "Kurt and Amanda are waiting."

[Part of this scene occurs in _Uncanny X-Men_ Vol. 1 #177]

* * *

**~ Chapter One ~**

_**Now…** _

They were calling it a cure.

48 hours ago, Dr. Kavita Rao had gone on national television and said the mutant strain was a disease. And that she and Benetech Labs had a drug to cure it.

Since then, Kitty, recently appointed student advisor at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, had been waist-deep in damage control, doing whatever she could to calm an understandably anxious student body, assuring them that their mutant statuses were secure and inalienable. But it wasn't going especially smoothly. The conversation she'd had earlier that day with a student named Wing had been particularly unsettling.

On a bench outside the Mansion, under a warm sun and a clear sky, Wing had described his ability to fly with a passionate gleam in his vibrant green eyes. "When you're flying, in a very literal sense the world goes away. It makes everything else… smaller. And sort of _okay_ , too. It's the most important feeling. I can't lose that."

Kitty had met his worry with a confident smile. "Wing, just because someone goes on TV and says they have a 'cure for mutation'… that doesn't mean that it's even true. And if it is… nobody's going to _force_ it on you. Mutants are a community. We're a people, and there's no way anybody can make us be what they want. We stick together and don't panic or overreact… you'll see. We're stronger than this."

Wing had stared at her as if she'd grown a third head. "Miss Pryde… Are you fucking retarded?"

While she she'd made some headway impressing upon Wing the evils of abelist language, her reassurances about the cure had utterly failed. 

Now, several hours later, in the evening of that same day, Kitty was in the conference room with her team—Scott, Emma, Logan, and Hank—discussing an upcoming raid on Benetech.

Kitty found herself shaking her head. "I'm sorry— _why_ are we doing this again?"

All of Scott, Emma, and Hank exchanged not-unsubtle glances before Hank responded. "Because we've found some more information about the cure that's not… _consistent_ with Dr. Rao's announcement. My analysis indicates that the cure uses mutant DNA samples."

" _Whose_ mutant DNA?" growled Logan.

"We don't know," Emma answered crisply. " _That_ is what we need to find out."

Kitty looked quickly at Scott, who had his head turned deliberately away, and then Logan, who was looking directly at Scott.

But if Scott was feeling the heat, his voice didn't show it. "So we're agreed. We leave at 2300 hours. That's four hours from now. And as I'm sure I don't need to remind you: until we have firmer answers about exactly what's going on, we keep this between us. Understood?"

As they dispersed, Kitty was somehow the last person to leave—with one exception.

"Kitty."

Kitty gritted her teeth as she halted at the threshold of the door. She did her best to wipe her face blank as she turned to confront Emma's impassive facade. "Yes?"

"Tell me," Emma began, studying her own long, tapered index finger flicking an invisible piece of dust off the conference table. "How is your new _pet_ doing?"

Kitty arched an eyebrow. "You can't possibly mean my boyfriend."

"I mean Kurt," she clarified helpfully.

"My _boyfriend_ is fine. Thanks for the concern."

Kitty turned decisively to leave, but Emma curled her fingers over her shoulder, stopping her. "Kitty… You have no idea how hard it is for me to say this but… The two of you seem… happy together."

Kitty pivoted to face the woman whose onetime villainy had precipitated her traumatic introduction to Kurt, confused, and wary. "This better not be some kind of telepathic reverse-psychology thing, because I don't—"

"It's an _observation_ , Kitty. That's all."

"Okay, Emma," Kitty agreed dryly, searching for answers she knew she'd never find in Emma's bleach-blue eyes. Yet if she didn't know better, Kitty would have sworn she saw a flicker of emotion there—sympathy? regret?—as Emma released her shoulder.

But she wasn't in the mood to dwell on it. Grateful simply to be free of the White Queen's clutches, she beat a hasty exit.

Kitty started down the hall at a blistering pace before realizing she needed some time to collect herself before returning to her quarters. Slowing to a purposeful amble, Kitty let her mind reflect back on the whirlwind of the past two months. Two months—had it only been that long? It was only two months ago that she'd returned to the X-Men and woken up naked with an equally naked Kurt wrapped around her body. It was situation she and Kurt had repeated nearly all the days since.

Adjusting to the new parameters of her relationship with one her oldest friends had been easier than explaining those new parameters to their other friends. The first raised eyebrows and wide-eyed stares of incomprehension had been uncomfortable; the next dozen such reactions had been tiring, and, eventually, boring. But even the boring reactions were better than the knowing smiles. Rachel's obvious lack of surprise had sent Kitty combing through a decade's worth of memories, searching for signs she herself had missed. How long had Rachel known, and what had tipped her off? Did it go back as far as Excalibur? Kitty could almost remember a dream she'd had, after their adventures in a certain alternate dimension, most of which Kurt had spent wearing very few clothes...

Kurt seemed to be handling things remarkably well, with a few red flags. Most notably, there was clearly something wrong between him and Logan; the tension was palpable every time the two supposed best friends were in the same room. Based on the fact that Logan behaved normally whenever she saw him alone, Kitty was sure he wasn't mad at her. But she was still frustrated and angry about being caught in the middle of whatever was going on; too often of late, she'd felt like a bargaining chip in a game she didn't fully understand. Kurt continued to brush it off, telling her she was imagining things. But Kitty knew there was more to it, and that whatever it was would come to a head sooner or later, hopefully without Kurt's blood on Logan's claws.

All of that, plus the daily business of saving the world and educating the next generation of mutants, would have been more than enough to make her life crazy. Now, there was also the "cure" to deal with. Kitty's heart constricted as she quickened her step; suddenly, she very badly wanted to see Kurt.

Kitty heard the shower running as she phased through the door to her quarters. She paused, listening to the sound, a slow, relieved smile spreading over her face, remembering: today was just one bad day among two months of mostly good and occasionally wonderful ones, thanks, in no small part, to the man currently cleaning his fur in her shower. She slid her tongue across her lips as she prepared to lose her uncertainty by embracing one of the few things in her life she was certain of.

She phased out of her clothes on her way to the bathroom, allowing all of her uniform, bra, boots, socks, and underwear to crumple to the floor at her feet before re-solidifying to slide open the shower door.

"Need a hand?"

"No," Kurt replied, smiling calmly as he made space for her enter. "I could use two."

Kitty soaked her hair and smoothed it away from her face before sliding up against Kurt's soap and water-slick fur, kissing him deeply as a warm river collected between her breasts, funneling down to grease the rest of them.

"Where's that tail of yours?"

"Where do you want it to be?"

It was a rhetorical question. As he spoke, his tail was winding itself around her waist, following a trail of water down her spine to lift her thigh around his midsection. Kurt dropped his back against the wall to accept her weight, sighing into her mouth as she stirred her hands and fingernails through his wet fur, his fang intentionally clipping the edge of her tongue, just the way she liked.

The aftermath was almost as nice, Kurt's one-of-a-kind hands working a large white towel around each of her curves, sometimes making her wetter in the process, though Kitty wouldn't have dreamed of complaining.

For a while, everything was perfect. But by the time they left the bathroom, Kitty wearing a bathrobe, Kurt with a towel tied around his hips, Kitty felt the outside world starting to creep back in. She dropped her tired backside onto the bed as she watched Kurt retrieve some underwear and a fresh white t-shirt from the top drawer of her dresser. Watching him get dressed, well-oiled muscles and ever-liquid tail bending and stretching beneath his water-dark indigo fur, a strange feeling came over her. For the briefest moment, a hint of her old trepidation returned, mind and body united in the sudden conviction: _nothing human could be so beautiful_.

Kurt caught her eye as he pulled his t-shirt down his taut midsection, carelessly graceful movements adopting a trace of hesitancy. "Is everything okay?"

Kitty blinked away the gaze that had become a stare. "Yeah, I'm good. It's just been a long day, you know?"

"I can imagine," Kurt lamented. He abandoned getting dressed to sit down next to her. "I've been getting these strange reactions from people—mostly students—all day. I'm sure they want to ask me about the cure, but I don't think they know how to do it without sounding like they're… Well."

"What?"

"Like they're insulting me, I suppose."

Quickly and a bit desperately, Kitty touched his cheek, running her fingers over the edge of his pointed ear and imprinting the pout of his lips with her thumb before letting her hand drop to squeeze the side of his neck. Kurt brushed her fingers with his lips as they passed, but she could tell his heart wasn't in it.

"Everything where it should be?" he joked feebly.

Kitty dropped her hand along with her eyes, but was telling the truth when she said, "Always."

She saw Kurt's own hand open and close against his bare thigh. Finally, he said, "I'm okay, Katzchen."

"I know."

"Even if it works, you know I would never…"

"I know, I know."

Kurt reached for her, dropping his forehead against hers as he stroked his hand over her damp hair. Kitty laid a reciprocal hand against his chest, feeling the subtle friction of his fur under his shirt.

"So was it just dealing with the students that got to you, or…"

"I sort of… can't tell you yet. We're keeping it under wraps until we're sure what's going on."

"Oh," said Kurt, pulling away. "Okay."

"I'm sorry," she said, imploring his forgiveness with her eyes. "There must be X.S.E. stuff sometimes that you're not supposed to share with other people."

"Other people," Kurt agreed. "But not you."

Kitty tightened her jaw. " _Please_ don't be like that."

"Like what?"

"Like… _you_. _Please_ don't make me feel any worse about it than I already do. I should be able to tell you—to tell everyone—really soon. I promise."

Kurt studied her, brow creased with concern, but not anger. "Fine. But I need you to promise me something else."

"Kurt…"

"Whatever it is," he said, golden eyes corralling hers. "Promise me you'll be careful."

Kitty's lips bent into a rueful smile. Her words, though, were serious. "I promise."

"Anyway," Kurt began, returning to the dresser to locate some pants. "I really have to get going. I'm supposed to meet that man at the hospital in an hour."

"About the… children?"

Kurt nodded. "I'd like to say I'll be back at a time but, well, you know how these things tend to go. Are you…?"

"I'll be… I'm out late tonight, too."

Kurt glanced at her as he buttoned his pants. But, true to his word, he resisted pressing for details. Instead, he said, "If I get back first, should I wait for you?"

"Only, you know, if you _want_ to…"

Kurt's face ignited into a smile that spread like a healing poultice over all her fears. "Now, Katzchen—what kind of question is that?"

[Kitty's conversation with Wing takes place in _Astonishing X-Men_ #3]


	2. PART ONE: Chapter Two

**~ Chapter Two ~**

Kurt looked without seeing into the twilight landscape scrolling by through the window of the hired car Ororo had arranged to take him into the city. Part of him was worried—about whatever top secret mission Kitty was on, about the cure, and about the fact that Logan still wasn't talking to him. But another part of him couldn't resist feeling happy. The X-Men were back together under one roof, he had a new mission, and, most importantly, he had Kitty.

He knew Kitty was surprised by how easily he'd accepted the change in their relationship—by how untroubled he was by the surprise of some friends, and other friends' lack of surprise. From his vantage point, being together was far easier than he now realized being apart had been. He wasn't sure how long he might have had romantic feelings for Kitty; before she'd kissed him in Chicago, he'd never allowed himself to consider the possibility. But he was starting to suspect his feelings were older than Chicago. Certainly not as old as their original stint with the X-Men, but perhaps as old as their final year with Excalibur. He still remembered the sense of loss he'd had when they'd finally returned to America. At the time, he'd attributed it to the transition from being a team leader back into one of many teammates. Now, he wondered if it had had something to do with Kitty—with knowing that once they rejoined their old friends, they wouldn't have as many reasons to while away their off-hours together, watching old movies or just watching the sunset over the Atlantic coast, content in each other's orbit. Long before he'd shared a bed with Kitty, he'd looked forward to going home with her.

That was why, despite all the upheaval and uncertainty, he couldn't help being happy. Regardless of whether the cure worked, or what he encountered at the hospital, or if Logan ever spoke to him again, he'd still get to end the day with the soothing rhythm of Kitty's heartbeat against his skin, singing him to sleep.

He was jolted back to the present by the sound of the driver's voice. "Sorry to bother you..."

"It's okay," Kurt assured him, hoping the driver hadn't construed his erstwhile silence as rudeness. "I was just… distracted."

"You thinkin' about all that stuff with the cure?"

"I don't—"

"The mutant cure. It's everywhere. Had to turn off the radio just to escape it."

Kurt managed a weary half-smile. "Yes, I was thinking about it, a little. As you said, it's unavoidable."

"What I really wanted to ask, though, is—you're one of them, right? One of the X-Men?"

Kurt hesitated slightly before replying, "That's right."

The driver nodded. "I figured. I recognized the lady—Storm, right? But nobody ever tells me anything. Probably for my own good and all that. But the thing is, I've been watching you back there for twenty minutes now and I can't for the life of me place you. You new?"

Kurt had almost forgotten he was using his image inducer to look life the "human" version of himself. He'd thought that in the midst of the recent spike in anti-mutant sentiment, his obvious mutant status might become a distraction from the task at hand. But having his deception pointed out, he felt awkward, and even a bit ashamed. How could he argue against the cure when he still considered his natural appearance an unworkable distraction?

"I'm using a device," Kurt explained. "To alter my appearance."

"Oh."

The driver was quiet for long moment, enough for Kurt to wonder if the conversation would end there. It didn't.

"You're Nightcrawler, right?"

Kurt blinked, taken aback by his apparent notoriety. "Ja."

"Ha! I knew it. It's the accent. I knew he's—you're—German, so I took a chance."

Kurt wanted to ask the driver how he knew where Nightcrawler hailed from, but restrained himself, reasoning it wasn't the type of thing a celebrity should do. He suddenly wondered why he didn't Google himself more often, before remembering what had happened the last time he'd done so…

"You don't…" the driver cleared his throat. "You don't have to use that thing you're using if… I mean, maybe it's for your mission or something, but I wouldn't want you to have to hide on my account."

Kurt considered the back of the driver's head, hating his need to doubt the man's sincerity. He seemed to be genuine, but could just as easily be looking for a good spook story to tell his children over breakfast.

It was almost as if the driver sensed his thoughts. "I know a bit, about how it is with you guys. My family worked for Charlie Xavier's family for years, when I was a kid. Then I grew up and… Well, after my parents died, I fell on some hard times. My own fault, just happens, you know? And Charlie, he did me a favor. I used to do lots of driving for him, back in the day. But then I moved out to Jersey for my wife's work and... Anyway, now I'm back, but I'm just doing it part-time while I'm in school. Accounting. Gotta go where the money is, right?"

Kurt nodded vaguely. But he perked up at the driver's next words.

"Put it this way—Charlie did more than do me a favor. He mighta saved my life. He's… Well, he's a good man."

Kurt met the driver's sincere eyes in the rear-view mirror. "Ja," he agreed, clicking off his inducer. "He is."

"Jesus!" the driver exclaimed, chuckling. "You're Nightcrawler, all right."

"Kurt."

"What?"

"My name."

"Well I'm Jim. Jim Vanderbeek. Pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise."

"So… What about this cure? Does it work?"

"I can't—"

"Yeah, yeah. I figured. Just thought I'd give it a try."

Jim was quiet for another long moment, fingers flexing on the steering wheel. "If it does work," he said at last, "would you take it?"

Kurt met the flash of his own golden eyes in the mirror. "Would you?"

Jim shrugged. "Depends. I mean, people don't need an excuse to be assholes. But it seems like what you've got going on must be pretty decent with the ladies. They're all into that Avatar and Twilight stuff."

"Um…" Kurt swallowed, equal parts stricken and intensely amused. "…thanks…?"

"No problem," Jim replied, smiling broadly.

Kurt returned his gaze to the window and covered his mouth with his hand to stop himself from laughing. He was already thinking about relating the conversation to Kitty. She'd punch him in the shoulder, and accuse him of making it up. He'd merely smile, content to keep her wondering.

The next half hour was more banal, largely consisting of Jim relaying not-especially-salacious stories about other famous people he'd driven. Mostly, he talked about how nice everyone was, in between repeated assurances he'd never tell anyone about meeting Nightcrawler. Kurt didn't believe him, but didn't mind. Jim seemed like a rare source of positive publicity.

Finally, Jim pulled the car up to the curb across from Metro General Hospital.

"Here you go," he said. "I wasn't paid to wait but I don't mind if you—"

"No," Kurt interrupted. "It's okay. In my experience, these things tend to take certain… turns."

"You gonna go in like that?"

Kurt hesitated, looking at his indigo-furred hand on the door handle. "Ja, I think so."

Recovering quickly from his moment of indecision, he finished opening the door, and climbed out of the car. He turned back toward the vehicle just long enough to flash Jim a winning smile. "After all," he quipped. "It would be tragic if my fans didn't recognize me."

"Too right," Jim agreed seriously. "You gotta milk that. I'm tellin' you."

"Thanks," said Kurt, more genuine than not.

"No," Jim replied, leaning across the seat. "Thank _you_ —for everything you guys do, for everybody."

As Jim drove away, Kurt turned up the collar of his trench coat against the crisp November air. Crossing the street, he tried to project an air of unobtrusive confidence; he'd long since learned that the best defense against unwelcome stares was to appear unconcerned about his obvious difference. For the most part, he was successful; there were a few curious glances on the street, but inside the hospital, the world-weary receptionist barely looked up from her computer as she gestured in the direction of the elevator. Kurt wondered if he was perhaps less impressive than some of the mutants who'd recently appeared on the evening news; he wasn't, after all, 12-feet-tall, or transparent, or on fire.

When his contact, nurse Christine Palmer, called his name, it was his turn to do a double-take. Surely, he thought, feeling the blood drain from his face beneath his blue skin, nurses who looked like _that_ , wearing uniforms that short—and that _tight_ —only appeared in a certain type of movies…

Christine smiled, her own eyes bright with an interest that was neither fear nor disgust.

Kurt cleared his throat, and tried to remember his own name. He could already tell—it was going be a long, strange night.

[Kurt begins his investigation at the hospital and meets Christine in _Nightcrawler_ #1]


	3. PART ONE: Chapter Three

**~ Chapter Three ~**

Kitty was seated at the back of the plane, across from Logan. Hank and Scott were flying, and Emma was seated behind Scott, calmly examining her French-tipped fingernails, one shapely white-leather-clad leg folded over the other. A slightly eerie quiet permeated the cabin, broken only by occasional exchanges of flight data between Scott and Hank.

Kitty turned to Lockheed, who was perched on her shoulder, his beady, reptilian eyes shooting daggers at Logan. When Logan returned the look, the dragon made a low, rumbling sound in his throat.

Logan broke the silence to quip, "Hope your pal there's not thinkin' about a little friendly fire."

Kitty ticked a finger under Lockheed's chin. That stopped his growl, but not his stare.

"He's okay," Kitty assured Logan. "Probably just nerves."

"Like all of us, huh?"

"You get nervous, Logan?"

"Everybody gets nervous sometimes, kiddo."

"And are you nervous now?"

"With Easy-Bake Oven over there givin' me the stink eye? I'm peein' my pants."

Kitty's lips twitched as she forced down a sputter of laughter.

Logan, too, offered a brief smile. But his gravity returned with his next words. "I haven't talked to the elf since…"

"He's okay," Kitty said quickly, glancing at the back of Emma's seemingly oblivious head. "Worried, like the rest of us. But fine."

"Tell him I... Well, you know."

"Why don't you tell him yourself?"

Logan grunted. It wasn't quite a yes, but it was still more than she'd been able to coax out of him since his feud with Kurt started. Kitty decided to consider it a minor victory.

When they reached Benetech, Kitty was on point, tasked with making her way undetected into the lowest level of the complex, dealing with any and all security measures along the way. Many floors and dozens of oblivious guards later, Kitty, with Lockheed in tow, arrived at a deserted corridor. That in itself was unusual. But not as unusual as what lay underneath. On her first attempt to phase through the floor of the deserted corridor, she went at least a dozen feet down, and got nowhere; there was nothing but solid metal in every direction. And not just any metal. Whatever it was fought her every inch of the way; it was thick, almost, more like water around a solid body than metal around a phased one.

She returned to the deserted corridor breathless, heart hammering. But she had no intention of quitting. Whatever was down there must be important. So she said her goodbyes to Lockheed, and tried again.

It felt like an eternity. There was at least one hundred feet of the strange metal protecting what must be a truly priceless—or truly dangerous—secret. She could barely breathe, and her mind grew fuzzy. It occurred to her to turn back, but there was no longer any way of knowing where "back" was; she'd long since lost any sense of direction. She could only keep falling, hoping against hope she'd eventually land somewhere, whether a man-made room, or the fiery center of the earth. Struggling against a threatening blackness, she thought about Kurt. She thought about her broken promise to be careful, knowing he'd forgive her, but not himself. Even though he wasn't there, and couldn't have helped her even if he had been, Kitty knew he'd find a way to believe it was his fault. Kitty clenched her hand into fists, and kept falling, newly determined to survive.

Finally, Kitty felt her feet touch open air, and lowered herself gratefully into a wide, metal-lined corridor. She only managed a single, grateful gulp of air before phasing back into the wall to avoid a pack of guards. When the guards had passed, she stepped back into the corridor, and moved deliberately down the hallway toward the large round door at the end of it, fighting the jelly-like trembling of her oxygen-starved limbs. She phased her hand through the door's thick lock, which swung open just as the guards turned the corner.

"We have a hostile!"

"Drop her! _Drop her_!"

The bullet whizzed painlessly through Kitty only to collide with a loud "klang" against the metal surface in front of her, a surface that Kitty suddenly realized wasn't a wall—it was a body.

Kitty's breath evaporated from her lungs even as her heart exploded in her chest. She froze, stock still, watching his massive steel body dive at and through her, dispatching the guards with brutal efficiency.

"Peter…?"

Kitty's breath returned amid the penetrating reality of the guards' bones shattering against the walls.

"Stop, Peter… Please stop… You'll kill them…"

Releasing the last guard, Peter Rasputin, her presumed dead onetime true love, turned to her, dropping his metal armor to reveal his familiar blue eyes. He stumbled forward like a man in a dream.

"Katya?"

He fell to his knees and wrapped his hands around her thighs, dropping his face against her stomach as a sob wrenched his body. "Oh God… Finally…"

Three hours later, Kitty was back in the blessed quiet of her quarters at the Mansion. Peter was in the lab with Hank, and would be for some time; it would take most of the night for the answers to outnumber the questions. But for the moment, Kitty didn't care. Now, the night's exploding spaceships, rampaging mutant hoards, corrupt S.H.E.I.L.D. agents, and impossible resurrection seemed very far away—dreamlike compared to the dreaming body in her bed, indigo chest rising and falling in oblivious regularity.

Kitty stripped down to her underwear the old fashioned way, wanting—needing—to feel as solid as possible for as long as possible. When she slipped into bed next to Kurt, she reached immediately for the additional solidity of his body, rubbing her face up the back of his neck and kissing him behind his ear, luxuriating in the familiar tickle at the back of her throat. Kurt stirred groggily, a low moan of contentment rumbling in his chest.

"Welcome back," he mumbled sleepily.

As he rolled over to collect her in his arms, Kitty flinched at the roughness of his right hand, which she realized was wrapped in a bandage.

"Are you…?"

"Hm? Oh, I burned myself when I… I'll tell you about it tomorrow."

Kitty gripped his hands and forearms with hers, sighing gratefully into the soft friction of his fur against her skin. One of his feet curled itself around her ankle, reassuring in its uniqueness, as his tail wound itself around her waist, forked tip twitching once against her bare stomach before lying still.

"What about you?" Kurt whispered, half-awake, against her ear.

"I'll tell you about it tomorrow," she promised.

But Kurt was already asleep.

[The raid on Benetech where Kitty finds Peter takes place in _Astonishing X-Men_ #4. Kurt gets burned by some mystical fire in _Nightcrawler_ #1-2.]


	4. PART ONE: Chapter Four

**~ Chapter Four ~**

When Peter wrapped his strong arms fully around Kurt's much smaller body, lifting his old friend nearly off the ground, Kitty knew Kurt hugged him back just as genuinely. Yet she also knew that when she'd told Kurt about Peter's return, his reaction had been ever-so-slightly conflicted.

"This doesn't change anything," she'd assured him, fingers trailing through his hair.

"Of course," Kurt had agreed, his attempt at a reassuring smile not quite reaching his eyes. "I just don't want you to feel that—"

"This doesn't change _anything_."

"Okay, Katzchen. Okay."

Now, after a long day of training, teaching, general housekeeping, and many more Russian bear hugs, the available senior staff were assembled in the conference room to hear Hank and Scott's report on the cure.

Kitty was seated between Kurt and Ororo, and across from Peter and Logan. The other seats were filled by Hank, Scott, Warren, Rachel, Lucas, Emma, and Sam, who, judging by his fidgeting ankles, was feeling slightly out of place. Most of them had changed into casual clothes, but Scott and Hank were in uniform; Kitty wondered if they were the same uniforms from the night before.

"I don't know which is the good news and which is the bad news," Hank began, "so I'll get straight to the point. First of all, the cure works. Second, most of the viable samples and the vast majority of the data Benetech held are now destroyed. That said, in all likelihood, this will only be a setback. The cure may very well be a reality we'll have to live with from now on, whether we like it or not."

Sam summoned the courage to ask, "What are we actually talkin' about, here? Does it suppress mutant abilities, or…"

Hank shook his head. "It's not like the mutant suppression drugs we've seen before. This drug actually has the power to suppress the mutant gene at a fundamental level, initiating a total physical transformation. Muscles, bone structure—everything is affected."

"And does it work on second generation mutants?" asked Ororo.

"Yes," Hank confirmed. "As far as I can tell, anyone with an X-gene is fair game. Though the process would obviously be more… involved… depending on the nature of the mutations."

In the long silence that followed, several of the assembled mutants shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. Kurt was one of them.

Finally, Lucas spoke up. "Can it be weaponized?"

"Maybe," Scott replied. "At the moment, several doses are required to produce permanent effects, but it may be possible to speed up the process."

"You said most of the viable samples had been destroyed," Kurt observed, looking directly at Hank.

"That's right," Hank confirmed.

"So where are the rest of them?"

Hank looked at Scott, who said, "It's in all our best interests to study to formula—we need to know what we're dealing with."

"Meaning Hank has a sample in the lab," Kurt deduced.

"I've already raked him over the coals, elf, believe me," Logan growled.

"Good," Kurt assented, eyes still grilling Hank.

Hank released a heavy sigh. "Look—what the two of you need to understand is, this might be a good option for some people. For people whose mutations are not… Well, not viable."

"And who decides that?" Kurt questioned.

"The individual, obviously."

"And we're to assume those individuals are making unbiased choices?"

Hank's leonine face frowned. "You've always _had_ your mutations, Kurt. It's not like that for everyone."

"That's true," Kurt conceded, gaze burning with a rare intensity. "Unlike some of you, I've never had the luxury of pretending _not_ to be different."

Feeling temperatures rise around her, Kitty laid her hand on Kurt's arm. "Kurt…"

But Kurt wasn't finished. "That cure… It's _pretending_ , Henry. Hiding. There is no 'cure' for who we _are_."

Hank was about to reply, but Scott cut him off with a raised hand. "Okay, Kurt—we get it. We all know how dangerous this cure is—what a slippery slope it represents. That's precisely why we're having this meeting—so we can all be on the same page about handling this situation as effectively as possible."

There was more official talk, but Kitty found herself listening with half an ear. She was far more interested in the body language around the table. She was still touching Kurt's bare forearm, his indigo fur exposed by the rolled-up sleeves of his button-down shirt. But she didn't need to touch him to feel his tension. Kurt didn't get angry very often. But he was angry now, at Scott, but especially at Hank. Hank was angry, too, but where Kurt's gaze was piercing, his was evasive; Hank's anger was undercut with guilt. Scott was frowning, Emma looked bored, Lucas was inscrutable, and Sam still looked out of place. And then there was Peter. Peter looked calm, or maybe just tired. Until he looked at her, and smiled. Then he looked happy—and handsome. Of course, Peter always looked handsome.

As a courtesy, Kitty returned his smile, then dropped her eyes to her pink fingers on Kurt's blue arm. A fresh white bandage was wrapped around Kurt's palm and one of his fingers. He hadn't told her much about the incident at the hospital; that story had been somewhat overwhelmed by the revelation of Peter's return. But she knew he had other small burns, on his neck, and his shoulders. Soon enough, his injuries would heal, and disappear, at least to the naked eye. Even Kitty—who knew exactly how many times Kurt had been shot, stabbed, and burned— hadn't realized exactly how many scars he had until she'd felt them under his fur with her own exploring fingers.

If she'd had any doubt about Kurt wanting the cure, his comments during the meeting should have silenced it. The very concept was ridiculous, really. Kurt wasn't anything like the tragic, desperate mutants who'd accosted them at Benetech the night before. His mutation was useful, viable, _beautiful_. And yet, Kitty couldn't deny the fact that she hadn't always thought so. There had been a time when Kurt's appearance had terrified her because he represented something she feared she might become.

She raised her eyes to Kurt's cheek, and waited for him to acknowledge her. But Kurt was looking across the table—at Peter. The fire had gone from his gaze, replaced with a dull glow that felt both impenetrable and distant, even to someone as accustomed as she was to reading the intricacies of his his pupil-less eyes.

"Unless anyone has any other questions," Scott was saying. "I guess we're done here. Hank and I are going to continue to monitor the situation, and we'll keep you all posted of any future developments."

As the room began to disperse, Kitty could tell Peter was taking his time, waiting for her. Kurt lingered in turn before Logan corralled him.

"C'mon, elf. I owe you a brew."

Kurt nodded, though he was unable to resist a backwards glance as Logan led him out of the room.

"Pete," Logan called over his shoulder. "You gonna join us?"

"In a moment, Logan," said Peter, eyes not leaving Kitty.

Logan closed the door behind him, leaving Kitty and Peter alone in the suddenly cavernous silence. They were both standing, separated by the width of the conference table.

Kitty said, "Before you say whatever it is you want to say, there's something you need to know. Something that I was too bamboozled to tell you last night. You see, I've been… Kurt and I are…"

Peter's eyebrows crawled up into his forehead. "You and… Kurt?"

He paused for a long moment before he laughed, voice and body exulting with a rare, consuming mirth.

Kitty seethed with fury, fingernails digging into her palms. "God _damn_ it, Peter."

Peter's face fell. "Your are… serious?"

"Did you not see me _holding his hand_ through the meeting?"

"You have been close for a long time, I thought..." Peter dropped his gaze to his broad chest. "I did not think, Katya."

Kitty crossed her arms, keeping her fists tightly curled. "Obviously."

"Oh Katya," Peter pleaded, stepping around the table to her side. "I am truly sorry. Kurt is a good man, I did not mean—"

"I know how it sounds..." Kitty began, but stopped herself, hating the implication of doubt. "You've been gone for a long time," she finished pathetically.

"Da. I… see."

They were both quiet for another long moment.

"May I tell you something?" he asked.

"I suppose."

"When I was in that room, there were times when I wanted to die. Those times, I would think of your face. Your voice. Your… To see you again, it is…"

"I… I know…"

Peter's large hand reached up. Kitty closed her eyes as his fingers trailed ever-so-gently down her cheek, and kept them closed when he leaned in closer, and brushed the side of her lips with a tender kiss. When he pulled away, she remained perfectly still, fighting an involuntary, uncontrollable tremor.


	5. PART ONE: Chapter Five

**~ Chapter Five ~**

Logan tossed Kurt a beer that he caught with his hand and then passed to his tail to catch the bottle opener.

"Does this mean we're friends again?" Kurt ironized, cracking open the beer before returning it to his hand.

"Ask me again in an hour," said Logan, popping his own cap with the tip of his claw.

"And do I also have to wait to point out the double standard of—"

"Yes."

"Fine."

Logan climbed up onto one of the bar stools behind the kitchen's island counter, while Kurt, wanting to keep his distance, remained standing, leaning against the cupboard doors on the other side of the island. He crossed his arms and rested his beer on his forearm between frequent, long sips.

Finally, Logan said, "Hell of a thing, finding Pete."

"Ja," Kurt agreed. "It's a miracle."

Logan looked at him, frowning. "Don't be weird about it."

"I don't—"

"Yes, you do."

"I'm happy," Kurt insisted. "What kind of monster wouldn't be happy about his dear friend returning from the dead?"

"Interesting choice of words."

Kurt all-but glared at his ostensible best friend. "Which part?"

Logan dropped his gaze to the counter. "You know what you guys have. You can't let…" he trailed off, and filled the silence with a gulp of beer. "What's past is past," he finished lamely.

"Easy for you to say."

" _Don't_ ride me, Kurt. I'm trying to help you here."

"Sure."

Logan's fierce scowl smoldered with undisguised aggravation. "Okay," he said tightly, through a clenched jaw. "I guess you want me to spell it out. What I'm _trying_ to say is—I forgive you. Will you stop being a dick now?"

Kurt shrugged, causing Logan's eyebrows to burrow even deeper into the bridge of his nose. "Damn, but you can be an ornery bastard when you want to be."

Kurt eyes widened. " _I_ can be—?"

" _I'm sorry_. Okay? Can we _drink_ now?"

"We're already—"

" _Don't_ push it."

Kurt offered another nonchalant shrug. "So would you take it? If you could?"

Logan made a face like he was disgusted by the question. "You really need to ask me that? You must be more shook up than I thought."

"Since when am I 'shook up'?"

"Since your girlfriend's ex-lover came back from the dead and you pretty much yelled at one of your best friends in a meeting for no good reason."

" _No good reason_?" Kurt echoed, the fuse finally crackling on his own restrained anger. "Again with the double—"

"It's different for me," Logan interrupted. "Getting in fights is what I do. But it's not like you."

"Oh? And you're the one who decides that, are you? Isn't that what this is really about?"

Logan scowled at him for another long moment before he released a weary breath and raked a slow hand through his thick hair. "Kurt…" he began. "Elf… I…"

He didn't get a chance to finish his thought. Peter picked that moment to make his entrance.

"Am I interrupting?" he asked, hesitating in the doorway.

"Course not," Logan assured him, welcoming him in with a sweep of his arm. "Grab yourself a beer. And refill us while you're at it."

Peter dutifully distributed three fresh beers before taking a seat on the stool next to Logan's.

Logan raised his bottle. "Cheers."

The three men exchanged glances as their bottles collided, though all but Logan's eyes—which were locked on Kurt—scuttled away quickly.

After they'd each taken several long, serious tugs on their beers, Logan said, "Just like old times, huh?"

"Da," Peter agreed. "It is as though nothing has changed. Except…"

Kurt worked hard to temper an instinctual urge to disappear as Peter's eyes rolled his way. "Piotr, I—"

Peter stopped him with a raised hand. "No, Kurt. Please. As Katya says, I have been gone for a long time." He paused, then, his eyes turning inward on some dark landscape neither Kurt nor Logan could ever know. "She deserves happiness," he said at last.

"Yes," Kurt agreed tonelessly. "She does."

"So," Logan began, redirecting the conversation toward another, equally fraught terrain. "What do you make of this cure, Pete?"

Peter shook his head slowly. "Truthfully, I do not know, Logan. It is too much for me to process, on top of everything."

"Would you take it?" Logan asked, half-seriously.

" _Nyet_. I like my mutation. What I do _not_ like are the problems it has caused for my friends and family. But the cure will do nothing to help that."

"Amen," said Logan, celebrating with a gulp of beer.

Peter turned his attention to Kurt. "What of you, my friend? You seemed so sure in the meeting. But I have known you to have doubts."

"You think I want the cure?" Kurt asked.

"No," said Peter. "But I do think you are exaggerating your certainty on the issue."

Kurt eyed him, wondering when the younger man had become so perceptive. "Maybe," he conceded. "But really, I'm like you. I like my mutation. What I don't like is when it becomes a burden on the people I care about. But there's no cure for the past."

"Well aren't you all a bunch of philosophers," Logan drawled.

"But how is everyone else?" asked Peter, switching tracks. "Emma? Running the school? And she is… with Scott?"

"Yup," Logan confirmed. "Crazy how things come full circle, ain't it?"

"And how is Ororo?"

Logan snorted. "Ororo is as Ororo does. You know—same old."

Peter's eyes grew distant before he dropped his gaze to his beer. "I find she looks… older."

"Don't tell her that," Logan joked.

"I do not mean physically. It is just that… I sense you have all been through a lot while I have been gone."

"That's why we're so glad you're back," said Logan. "We could really use an extra pair of hands. Especially ones made out of organic steel."

"And what of you, Logan?" Peter asked. "Are you seeing anyone?"

"Next question."

"And Ororo?"

"Really, Piotr," said Kurt, finally cracking a smile. "You should know her better than that."

Logan said, "Hard to believe, sometimes, you guys used to fight over her back in the day."

"I love Ororo as a sister," said Peter. "To think there could have been something more was… misguided."

"What about you, elf?"

Kurt redirected the question. "It seems to me, _you've_ been spending the most time with her, lately."

Logan grinned. "What're friends for, right?"

For the next hour, the conversation continued, each beer sending them further into the past.

"Remember the first time we went to space?" asked Logan. "There you were, Pete, having a nervous breakdown, and all elf here can think about is how jealous his old circus friends are gonna be when he gets back to Earth and brags about it."

"Kurt has always been a good deal braver than myself, Logan," Peter replied, smiling graciously in Kurt's direction.

Kurt returned his smile. "To think, all it took was dying to make you develop a sense of humor."

Logan snorted. "If I'd known it was that easy, I'd have killed him myself years ago."

The three friends shared a much-needed laugh, healed by the dark humor of their exchange. They'd long ago learned that mocking death was the best way to ease its terrible hold.

"Do you remember," Peter began, "when Katya first joined us?"

Kurt exchanged a look with Logan. "Yeah," Logan confirmed. "We remember."

Peter stared down at his beer as he conjured the memory. "She was so young. Yet so fearless. There was no stopping her from getting what she wanted. In some ways, she has always been the bravest of us all."

Kurt didn't disagree, but couldn't help being discomfited. There seemed to be more than nostalgia tied up in the remembrance. Peter's next words confirmed it.

"Kurt, may I ask, how long you have been—"

"Two months," Kurt replied. "More or less."

"More or less?" Peter echoed.

"It was her decision, Pete," Logan interceded. "She made the first move."

"I was not implying—"

"Just sayin'."

Kurt drew in his old friend's gaze as he said, "It was a surprise to me too, Piotr."

"Now I worry I have overstepped," said Peter.

"Water under the bridge," Logan assured him. "Part of things coming full circle is them never stayin' the same for long."

They shared another smile of commiseration, but Kurt's was slightly forced. Logan's words hit him strangely. Two months, he realized, was a blip in time compared to the years Kitty had loved Peter. She'd loved the Russian X-Man almost since the first moment she'd met him, when she was too young to truly know what love was. She'd loved him when she'd still been afraid of his own demonic features, physically shying away from his body whenever he entered a room. He'd never truly told how much her fear had hurt him. He didn't know how to tell her without hurting her in turn, and he couldn't abide that. He'd always been willing to let himself be hurt to keep Kitty safe.

"Hey, elf—you still with us?"

"Ja, Logan. I was just... thinking."

"Wanna share with the group?"

"Another time," Kurt deferred. He finished his last swallow of beer, and slid the bottle onto the counter. "This should be a night of celebration, and I fear I've become poor company."

"Classic excuse," said Logan, "from a guy who's got somebody waitin' for him."

Kurt would have been angry at Logan's inflammatory words, but Peter's pale blue eyes diffused it.

"I'll, uh... see you tomorrow, Piotr?"

"Da," Peter agreed. "I am not going anywhere."

Kurt was left to wonder at the Russian's goodbye as he made his exit the fast way, teleporting straight from the kitchen to outside Kitty's door. Though he now had a drawer in her dresser and a shelf in her bathroom, he still thought of it that way—as _her_ door. He didn't take his place in her bed for granted, and hoped he never would.

For several seconds, he found himself staring at the door, experiencing a brief, unexpected surge of trepidation. After the recent retreat into the past, the present felt newly strange. He thought about the sadness etched into Peter's classically handsome face, and about Kitty's onetime glittering admiration for that face. He'd never stopped loving his own past lovers; the love changed, but remained. And he'd reunited with his own first love many times, even when he knew he shouldn't. The light of first love was hard to forget, especially when that first love was part of an adopted family.

It was the curious glance of a passing student that finally made him raise his hand to knock on the door. He was offering the student—an older teenage girl with thick curly hair and green freckles on her full cheeks—a small, reassuring smile when a familiar hand phased through the door, and seized his belt buckle.

With improbable strength, Kitty jerked him forward. Kurt phased, stumbling, through the door, solidifying in time for his hips to crash against Kitty's. Whatever gasp of surprise or protest he might have made was swallowed by her ferocious kiss, all of her mouth covering all of his. Kurt began to forget his trepidation when Kitty worked her hands under his shirt, and had completely forgotten it by the time her hands returned to his belt.

Sometime later, he was sprawled diagonally across the bed with Kitty sprawled across his chest, naked save the shirt sleeve still caught on the wrist of his bandaged right hand, his mind deliciously blank.

"Your mouth tastes terrible," she observed, lips tickling his fur. 

"You didn't give me much chance to rectify that."

"No," she agreed, damp lips curving into a smile. "I didn't."

Kurt returned her lazy smile as he dipped his head to brush his lips across her forehead. "How will I ever make it up to you?"

"I'm sure you'll find a way."

"You told me you never used your powers for sex."

"You're bringing out the worst in me."

He whispered his response into her ear as he nuzzled the soft waves of her hair, which had been tied back when she greeted him, and now definitely weren't. "I beg to differ."

Kitty grinned through the playful elbow she jabbed in his ribs. He staged a mock protest before she settled back into his body, cheek sliding slowly up his chest, legs smoothing their way over his. He ran his free hand down her back to cup her thigh, loving the way her hard curves fit against his own. 

"Not that I'm complaining," be began after a moment, "but was there something in particular that provoked this attack?"

"I missed you."

"We saw each other two hours ago."

"Really?" she asked, feigning ignorance. "Feels longer."

"It has been a long day," he agreed, and meant it. Despite his best efforts, the day's memories, thoughts, and doubts had begun to penetrate his post-coital bliss. He also remembered that his hand hurt, and that his tail was bent uncomfortably under his left leg.

He shifted under Kitty's weight, and she pulled back to let him push himself upright, and finally free his bandaged hand from his tangled shirt.

"Did you have a good time with Peter and Logan?" she asked.

"I suppose," Kurt replied, examining his sore hand.

"What did you guys talk about?"

"You know—old times."

"They are _old_ times, Kurt."

Kurt turned to her. She was sitting cross-legged at the center of the bed, naked, shameless, and jaw-droppingly beautiful, skin still flushed with pleasure, strands of auburn hair stuck to her rosy cheeks.

As he met her hazel gaze, she said, "Peter and I aren't you and Amanda."

Kurt blinked. "Why would you—"

"I'm just saying."

He wanted to challenge her assertion—to tell her that even though he'd been making the same comparison to himself outside her door, she had no right to invoke it without understanding what Amanda meant to him, not only as the first woman he'd ever loved, but as the first woman who'd shown him he was worthy of love. But he was tired of arguing with his friends, and wanted to keep her there, just as she was—beautiful, happy, and perfect. So instead, he found himself saying, "It's late. And tomorrow will be another long day."

Kitty sighed as she unfolded her legs and slung them over the side of the bed. "Unfortunately, yeah. I'm gonna grab a shower, unless you..." she lingered as she trailed off, purveying an unspoken invitation to join her.

"I'm fine," he replied. "You go ahead."

As they'd done for most of the past two months, they spent the night together, in her bed. But it was the first such night they feel asleep not tangled in each other's arms.

**~ End of Part One ~**

* * *

_**A/N:** In Part Two, things get better, and then worse, and then better again—hang in there!_


	6. PART TWO: Chapter One

**PART TWO**

**~ Prologue ~**

_**Then…** _

It had been 48 hours. 48 hours since Kurt had woken up, half-alive and half-naked, in a strange public park surrounded by teenage boys armed with rocks.

Kurt had barely felt the first few blows to his torso, he was already in so much pain. After teleporting away from Nimrod, his whole body had felt dislocated, as though his muscles had been twisted and rearranged on his bones into weird and painful shapes. As he'd regained a groggy consciousness and tried to get away from the teenagers' blows, he was vaguely surprised he was even able to move, let alone fight. He'd had to, though, when he realized he couldn't teleport.

48 hours and two cracked ribs later, he was wearing stolen clothes and collapsing exhaustedly against a graffiti-smeared brick wall in what seemed like the hundredth alley he'd seen that day. Kurt closed his eyes and tried once again—as he'd been doing every fifteen minutes for the past two days—to access his gift. _Imagine yourself someplace else_. But, when he opened his eyes, he was still exactly where he didn't want to be: in the midst of a recurring nightmare, alone, hurt, lost, and powerless. And people were following him. No, not people: a mob. For the third time in Kurt's short life, a mob was trying to kill him.

So far, he'd managed to use his still-functioning abilities of wall-climbing and blending into shadows to stay one step ahead of his pursuers. But they were getting closer. As recently as a few hours before, Kurt had been considering throwing himself on the mercy of the citizenry in the hopes of securing both medical attention and a phone call to his friends. Yet when he saw how much the mob had grown, any hope of local assistance was dashed. Kurt estimated that the mob now consisted of at least twenty-five people, several of whom had shotguns in addition to bats and homemade clubs. Now, as he cut a stealthy path toward the docks, everything was starting to seem impossible. Getting to a phone would mean going out in the open, as would trying to find a hospital. Besides, given the virulent reaction of the locals, Kurt couldn't be sure the hospital would even take him in or protect him. For all he knew, they might simply hand him over to the mob.

There was also the small but important matter of his nearly total exhaustion. It was only adrenaline that had been keeping him on his feet, and it was a store that was rapidly depleting. By the time he reached the abandoned warehouse, dropping against the wall of yet another alley, he was almost at his limit. He listened for a moment, and then made the risk to turn the corner into the light, hoping to get inside the building and catch a few hours of sleep before he had to start running again. As it turned out, he barely managed ten steps before he heard a voice cry out, " _There he is_! There's the mutie! Get him!"

Kurt dodged quickly through the warehouse's broken doorway, but the mob was on him with what seemed like uncanny speed.

"Leave me alone!" he cried vainly. "I've done _nothing_!"

"Get him!"

When something hard collided with his skull, causing him to collapse amid a heap of broken boxes, he wasn't even angry. Instead, he was almost relieved. As the dark, noisy shadow of the mob closed in around him, Kurt did experience a brief flicker of regret, thinking about his friends, and his dreams, and all the things left unsaid and undone. But there were so many of them, and he was so tired…

When he saw Peter, Kitty, and Illyana drop into the room through the heavenly light of a teleport disc, he was sure he was hallucinating. Either that, or he was already dead. It was through the haze of a dream that he saw Peter standing tall before the mob, impossibly intimidating, impenetrable, and heroic, even in his human appearance and civilian clothes.

"Why are you chasing this man?" he heard Peter's booming, Russian-accented voice demand. "Is he a criminal?"

Then Peter was at his side, helping him to stand against his powerful body, and Kurt realized with overwhelming thankfulness and relief that he wasn't dead after all.

"Relax, Kurt," Peter said softly. "I am here, now. We will get you out of here."

As he got to his feet, Kurt's head started to clear enough for him to absorb the scene of Kitty taking Peter's place confronting the fury of the mob.

"Human law is for human beings!" a man shouted, brandishing a baseball bat.

Kitty didn't flinch. "Hey, mister—who defines what's human?"

"It's obvious, girl. Just open your eyes!"

"That simple, huh? Well, a whole chunk of my family was murdered in gas chambers because the Nazis said it was just as 'obvious' that Jews weren't human. Is _that_ right?"

"He scared my kids!"

"You scare _me_!" Kitty spat back, shouting definitely into her opponent's bearded face. "Does that give me the right to beat your brains out? You want to prove how big and tough you are, beat up on me! C'mon! What're you waiting for? You're bigger than me and I'm just a girl! Hey, maybe I'm a mutie, too. Ever think of that? Maybe we _all_ are."

Kitty's defense continued. Kurt tried to listen, tried to be proud of her courage, her faith, and her impassioned words. Yet his dominant thought was that he hoped she would wrap up soon, because he really wanted to go home.

[The end of this scene takes place in _Uncanny X-Men_ vol. 1 #210]

* * *

**~ Chapter One ~**

_**Now…** _

"Um… This isn't good."

"What?"

Kurt and Kitty were in the alleyway outside the stately Dakota Building in Lower Manhattan. Inside the building, a satanic ritual was about to take place to resurrect the last of thirteen demons supposedly banished during the Biblical war in heaven. The life of an innocent boy was at stake, in addition to countless others should the resurrection prove successful. Kurt was holding Kitty's hand, preparing to teleport inside. Usually, teleporting was as easy as thinking. But not at the moment; when he reached for his power, it stubbornly evaded him.

"I can't… something is…"

"You can't 'port?"

Kurt shook his head. "Magic, maybe. Or some kind of energy field."

"Let me try."

"Be careful."

Kitty phased effortlessly through the brick wall. After a moment, she peeked her head back outside. "You coming?"

Kurt gritted his teeth before accepting her hand. He much preferred jaunting past things to passing through them.

"What's the matter?" she teased.

Kurt began outside, "Phasing is…" and completed his sentence inside the foyer. "…weird."

Kitty grinned back at him. "You were singing a different tune a few days ago."

"Context is everything."

Before she could quip back, a door creaked open at the opposite end of the corridor. Together, they scampered quickly behind the wall. Kitty peered out around the corner.

"Well?" Kurt whispered.

"Two people. Guests. A man and a woman. Older."

"That's our ticket in, then. We subdue them, use image inducers to take their place. After that, we proceed with the rest of the plan."

"You still can't 'port?" asked Kitty.

Kurt shook his head.

"Then I'll handle it."

"Are you sure?"

"Trust me."

Kurt nodded, and Kitty disappeared through a nineteenth century portrait of a dapper mustached gentleman in military dress. Kurt counted off five seconds before he saw Kitty's disembodied arm emerge from the wall. She clamped her hand over the mouth of the man before slamming his head against the wall, knocking him instantly unconscious. The woman barely had time to turn toward the sound of the man's collapse before Kitty was on her, as well. She struck the unsuspecting woman full in the face, dropping her unceremoniously at her companion's feet. Kurt couldn't resist a smile. It had been some time since he'd watched Kitty work. He'd almost forgotten how much skill and power were packed into her deceptively petite frame—not to mention recklessness, a trait he'd always admired.

When he jogged forward to meet her, he looked at the pile of unconscious bodies, then back up at her, grinning lopsidedly. "Nice moves."

"Sometimes it's just nice to do things the old fashioned way, you know?"

"I'll take your word for it."

Kitty used her foot to flip the bodies onto their backs, so Kurt could snap their images with the inducers. As he handed one of the devices off to Kitty, he seized her hand, pulling her in for a quick but passionate one-armed kiss.

"What was that for?" she asked. Her cheeks were wonderfully flushed, her pulse beating fast against his.

"For luck," he told her. "And because you look beautiful delivering sucker punches to evil dowagers."

"Hey—I gave her at _least_ three seconds to defend herself."

"Don't spoil the moment." He kissed her again, tenderly, on the temple, before releasing her to get down to business.

As they engaged their disguises and hurried up the stairs, Kurt was conscious of the danger. Once they reached their destination, they would likely confront some approximation of hell. Part of him was even afraid; only fools failed to be properly afraid of real and present dangers. But he'd been to many versions of hell—they both had. And each time, they'd survived, and saved whoever needed saving. There was always the possibility today would be different. But with Kitty at his side, he had a hard time believing it. Together, they'd never been anything less than unstoppable. His confidence nurtured a flicker of excitement; if he had to spend the night fighting demons, he much preferred to do so with a brave and beautiful woman fighting next to him. Perhaps there'd even be swords involved...

The scene that followed didn't quite live up to his fantasies, but it was hard to argue with the results. Within fifteen minutes, one abominably evil man was dead, one innocent child had been saved, and thirteen demons had been re-consigned to hell. His metal bikini-wearing foster sister/ex-girlfriend had also been returned to Limbo, though not before favoring Kitty with a vaguely disconcerting smile. All-in-all, a good day's work.

The clean-up, as usual, took considerably longer than saving the day. An hour later, the blocked-off street outside the Dakota Building was still swarming with police cars and ambulances, and at least a few X-Men. Kurt and Kitty were standing with Ororo in the shadow of one of many black SUVs.

"The police have taken the other 'party guests' into custody," said Ororo. "You may be asked to testify at the trail."

"I doubt it," Kurt replied. "Putting X-Men on the stand tends to cause more problems than it solves."

"You don't think they'll get off, do you?" asked Kitty.

Kurt shook his head. "There should be plenty of evidence to convict, even without our input on the mystical angle. Twelve children were killed before we got involved."

They were all quiet for a long moment, acknowledging the gravity of what had transpired. It wasn't the first time innocent lives had been lost because the authorities had waited too long to let them help.

"We did the best we could," Ororo said at last. "Maybe next time, they'll call us sooner."

None of them truly believed it, but it was a nice sentiment, all the same.

"I guess there's not much more we can do here," Kurt observed.

"The Blackbird's ready to leave when you are," Ororo confirmed.

Kitty touched his arm. "I hope this doesn't sound insensitive, but do you want to stay behind? We booked that hotel room for a base of operations, and it would be nice to get away for a bit, you know?"

"I'll have to check with my boss," Kurt quipped, glancing at Ororo.

Ororo offered a small smile, directed at Kitty. "Permission granted."

"Great!" Kitty exclaimed. "I'll grab our overnight bags out of the jet—be right back."

Kurt watched Kitty bound away before confronting the awkward silence between himself and Ororo.

"Thanks for that," he said. "It's, uh... been a long week."

"You two make a good team," she replied.

Kurt regarded her cautiously. "Is that all you were thinking?"

"No. But my other thoughts are private."

"From everyone, or just from me?"

"Is there a difference?"

"Maybe."

"She loves you, you know."

Kurt blinked, taken aback. "How do you—"

"Isn't it obvious?"

In lieu of a reply, Kurt asked, "Why are you telling me this?"

"To remind you not to screw it up."

He was about to object, until she added, in a softer tone, "Let yourself be happy. For once."

Kurt thought about the inviting caress of Ororo's fingers on his neck at the party two months before, and so many other invitations over the years, none of which he'd allowed himself to accept. "You're not… jealous are you?"

Ororo cocked a silver eyebrow above a mysterious smile. "Ever the egoist, hm?"

Kitty picked that moment to return with the bags.

"You can find your own way over to the hotel?" Ororo asked.

Kurt took the bags from Kitty, and held out his white-gloved hand, palm up. "Now that I've been thoroughly cleansed of magical hexes, it's three teleports, if the lady is willing."

Kitty made a less-than-pleased face before placing her hand in his. "Just this once. In the interests of efficiency." 

Kurt followed the same route they'd taken earlier in the evening, teleporting twice onto pre-determined rooftops and then a third time straight into their hotel room. The room was nicer than it needed to be, partly because nicer hotels had more reliable security, but also because Ororo had chosen it; goddesses had a certain sense of propriety. The luxurious king-size bed was bordered by plush velvet armchairs, and the bathroom, featuring wall-to-wall white marble, a multi-jet shower, and a very inviting jacuzzi, was upstaged only by the breathtaking view of the city.

Kitty reeled against him as they materialized a final time. "God…"

"Sorry," he offered, smoothing a comforting hand down her back. "I know that can't have been pleasant."

"It's okay, just... give me a second to get my bearings."

He tossed their bags onto the bed while walking her over to one of the velvet armchairs. Once she was settled, he headed for the picture window to draw back the blinds, revealing the glittering nighttime spectacle of the city below. New York had very little in common with Munich, the first city he'd visited in his youth, or London, his favorite one. But it was undeniably spectacular—so tall, and so endless, countless spires thrust defiantly into the heavens and the gloom of night.

As he stood looking out at the city, Kitty, apparently recovered from the rigors of teleporting, stepped over his tail to fit her pelvis against his backside, hands sliding down the front of his uniform while her lips tickled the exposed fur behind his ear.

Her breath was warm on his neck when she said, "That chair feels like you. Not as soft, though."

He tried not to smile, but didn't quite succeed. "Well, that's just what a man likes to hear."

"We both know you're plenty hard where it matters..."

Kitty's palms were pressing down his abdomen as she said it; Kurt was sure his razor-thin unstable molecule uniform had never felt thicker. He fought back by trailing the tip of his tail down the inside of her leg, and up again, before looping it around her thigh, and squeezing. If he'd heard a sweeter sound than the one Kitty breathed into his ear, he couldn't remember it.

He pivoted to face her as he dropped himself into the window ledge, pulling Kitty down with him, into his lap. His hands were full of her thighs as he craned his neck up to catch her kiss, sighing into her mouth as she settled her weight around his hips, forcing his shoulder blades back into the window. Spandex squealed on glass and more spandex, a sound he'd always loved.

"I hope someone's watching," she murmured against his lips.

Despite everything, including the intoxicating taste of adrenaline on Kitty's throat and the even-better press of her breasts on his collarbone, her words sent a chill up his spine. "You're right, we should—"

Kitty silenced him with a kiss. "Let them look..."

He did his best to agree, closing his eyes to concentrate on what Kitty's tongue was doing to his ear. But that was worse, because there, in the darkness, he saw his worst fear: himself, bleeding and helpless, an angry mob, and an all-too-solid Kitty, being hit with stones meant for him.

He seized her shoulder to forcibly halt her embrace, all the heat in his body having abruptly gone cold.

"What's—"

Kurt stopped her question by pushing back on her shoulder, forcing her to stand. He got up quickly after her, and stepped away from the window.

Kitty followed him, laying a gentle hand on his arm. "Kurt... what happened? One moment, you were right there with me, and then..."

"I'm sorry, there was something..." he shook his head to clear it, but a remnant of the vision remained. _Kitty was on her knees, blood running down her cheek..._

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No," he lied. "It's not you. Maybe it's just the case, coming back to me at the wrong time."

"That's understandable. This was a tough one. I thought I could take your mind off it, but—"

"You did," he assured her, regaining enough of his composure to cover her hand with his. "You _are_. But maybe I'm a bit too distracted for... this... right now."

"I've been there. Wanna talk about it?"

There was nothing in the entire world he wanted less. "Maybe later...?"

"Then let's do something else. How about a walk?"

That was almost as low on his current list of desires, but seemed like a reasonable compromise, under the circumstances. "Sure."

"Great!" Kitty enthused. "I love the city at night. Let's hope I remembered to pack something street-worthy..."

A few minutes later, Kitty returned from the bathroom wearing a pair of dark-wash jeans and a curve-hugging black turtleneck, his hair smoothed into a chic ponytail. He'd also changed into jeans, and was pulling a grey cashmere sweater over his head as she entered the room. He caught the heat of her gaze while he was smoothing his sweater down his chest. Most of the time, he didn't mind Kitty looking at him. On the contrary, he usually enjoyed it; it was nice to feel appreciated by a beautiful woman he cared about. But there was something about the way she was looking at him that was less like looking, and more like watching. It reminded him of the way she'd looked at him four days before, when he'd been getting dressed after their shower. Then, as now, her gaze made him feel awkward in ways he hadn't felt in years—not since the old days, which had been good in some ways, less so in others.

"Is something…?"

At his prompting, Kitty blinked her gaze away a bit too quickly. "Sorry, you just… You look good."

"Thanks," he managed. "So do you."

"Ready to go?"

"Just about."

Kurt shucked his leather jacket off the back of the chair, and grabbed his image inducer from the side table. Once again, he caught Kitty watching him.

"Do you have to…?"

"I don't like it either," he replied. "But I don't think… under the circumstances…"

"Yeah," she sighed. "I guess you're right."

The way her face fell as he became the "human" version of himself flattered him, then annoyed him, which left him feeling utterly confused. Why did it matter so much to her what he looked like? He couldn't recall her caring so much in the past. He was still the same person—still the same man who'd been her friend for a decade before becoming her lover. Part of him began to wonder if they should stay and talk after all. But Kitty was already reaching for his hand.

"C'mon—if we leave now, the park will still be open."

[Kitty helps Kurt stop the release of the demons in _Nightcrawler_ #4]


	7. PART TWO: Chapter Two

**~Chapter Two~**

At 10 pm on a Wednesday in early November, the Manhattan streets were about as deserted as they ever became, mostly populated by purposeful individuals hurrying home as well as the odd dawdling couple.

Kitty walked hand-in-hand with Kurt for several blocks amid cool streetlights and darkened display windows, sharing a silence that may or may not have been comfortable. Then Kurt squeezed her hand, thumb caressing her knuckles.

"This is nice, actually."

"Actually?" she echoed.

"When you suggested it, I wasn't sure it was what I wanted."

Kitty looked at him, then regretted it, having forgotten his face wasn't his own. "You should have said something."

"I know. But now we're here. And it's nice."

Kitty wanted to continue the conversation. Over the past week, she'd become increasingly concerned about the things Kurt wasn't telling her. He hadn't told her what really happened with Logan and Peter, and had only mentioned in passing that he'd visited Amanda in Limbo. And she suspected she'd never get a straight answer about what, exactly, had happened back in the hotel room, when Kurt had gone in an instant from eagerly devouring her mouth to all but pushing her off his body. She wasn't angry; she knew the trauma they routinely endured in their line of work could have unpredictable side effects. She just wanted to understand. She'd always been good at fixing things. But the most essential part of fixing anything was figuring out what was wrong, and Kurt hadn't been making that easy.

And yet, Kurt was right—despite the interference of his image inducer, it was nice, being out, together, in the real world. So instead, she changed the subject.

Squeezing his hand back, she said, "Forget the park—let's walk down Madison and gawk at all the stuff we can't afford."

"Since when do you like shopping?"

"I don't. But you do."

In response to Kurt's sidelong expression, she observed, "You're wearing a rag & bone sweater and an AllSaints biker jacket. Either of which probably cost more than I've ever spent on an entire outfit."

The side of his mouth twitched with amusement. "Scott doesn't pay you?"

"Not as much as Ororo pays you, apparently."

"My boss must think I need more maintenance," Kurt quipped.

"Or maybe, she likes to keep you looking nice," she teased back.

"There's also the possibility that Scott is cheap."

"Thank God Emma's independently wealthy..."

That finally earned her a real smile, the essence of which survived Kurt's human disguise.

"But I wouldn't be a gentleman," he said, "if I didn't point out the obvious fact that some women don't need to try quite as hard as Ms. Frost."

Kitty regarded him from under her eyelashes as she asked, "You wouldn't like me in thigh-high white leather boots and an ermine-trimmed cape?"

"I didn't say _that_."

"What about this?" she asked, stopping them in front of a window displaying a one-shoulder Oscar de la Renta cocktail dress, made of intricately draped emerald green taffeta that tied at the shoulder and trailed down the mannequin's generously exposed leg.

Kurt made a show of examining the dress. "It's nice..." Abruptly yet somehow gracefully, he spun her on his hip to face the next window, spotlighting an extremely form-fitting Yves Saint Laurent jumpsuit made entirely of fuchsia colored sequins, whose microscopically thin shoulder straps seemed dangerously fragile even on the lithe mannequin. "...But I think _this_ would go better with your eyes."

"My _eyes_?"

"Among other assets."

She wanted to kiss the grin off his face, but settled for jostling his hip while smiling through an embarrassed but flattered blush. For Peter, she'd always been pretty and precious. But Kurt brought out a side of her she'd kept under wraps for too long, and made it fun, rather than scary or shameful. She could only imagine what those sequins would do to Kurt's fur...

Window shopping abandoned, they continued walking, secure in the glow of their affection. When they stopped at a light at Madison and 59th, a woman wearing many layers of mismatched clothes and pushing an empty, battered shopping cart pulled up next to them. Her cloudy eyes roved over them as she smiled.

"Nice night. Pretty couple."

Kitty smiled back politely before they left the woman in their wake. Yet they didn't get much further before being accosted again, this time by a twenty-something girl with green-rimmed glasses and a mess of red hair pushed up under an army cap, a heavy DSLR camera slung across her shoulder.

"Oh my God!" the girl exclaimed, stopping in her tracks. "What a gorgeous couple! This might sound weird, but would it be okay if I took your picture for my portrait project?"

"Sure," Kitty said quickly, wanting to save Kurt the awkwardness of refusing.

"Great! Get close and look _romantic_."

As the girl raised her camera, Kitty realized she had no idea how to strike a romantic pose. Thankfully, Kurt was there to save her. He slid one hand into the hollow of her back to pull her close as the tips of two fingers that were really one cupped her jaw, tilting her face toward his. The girl snapped the picture with Kitty's nose tickling the secret fur on Kurt's neck, her right hand on his chest, inside his jacket.

"Beautiful!" the girl enthused. "If you give me your email, I'll send you a copy."

"Don't worry about it," Kurt replied, forcing a conciliatory smile. "But thanks, anyway."

"Okay, if you're sure! Have a good night!"

When they continued on their way, something had changed. The silence between them was back to having a ripple of tension that Kitty couldn't properly place or explain. And it wasn't just Kurt. Kitty found the back-to-back comments on their well-suited attractiveness bothering her more than they should have. They were an attractive couple, but not like this, with him hiding and her pretending she didn't mind.

As they turned up Central Park West, Kurt finally broke the silence. "I don't know if I properly thanked you."

"For what?"

"For helping with the case," he replied.

Kitty scoffed. "You make me sound like some kind of hero or something."

"You saved a young boy's life," Kurt said seriously. "I couldn't have done that without you."

"All in a day's work, right?"

Kitty could feel Kurt's gaze hot against her cheek. She met his eyes reluctantly, steeling herself against his black pupils and brown irises.

"Really," he insisted. "Thank you."

Kitty managed a small smile. "It was nice working with you again. I've missed that."

"Me too."

They were walking past the impressive stone façades that bordered the park, which was dark and mysterious across the wide, empty lanes of traffic to their right. The horseback statue of Teddy Roosevelt marking the entrance to the Museum of Natural History had just come into view ahead of them.

"When I first came to New York," Kurt said, "it seemed unreal. Even growing up in Germany, even living miles away from the closest village, I knew all these streets before I ever saw them. This whole city—it's like a movie set. After all these years, it still feels a bit like that."

The reference to the scene's unreality hit Kitty in the wrong way. "It's just buildings," she said flatly. "Buildings and people."

"Getting cynical in your old age, aren't you?"

"I'm sorry, I'm just..."

In lieu of completing her thought, she spun him to face her, throwing her arms around his neck, fingers stoking his invisible fur even as she felt his invisible tail brush the back of her legs, making a large, invisible curve around their bodies. Kitty closed her eyes, imprinting his real face on the back of her eyelids.

"Say something," she said.

"What would you like me to say?" Kurt asked softly, sliding his hands around her waist.

"Something romantic—you're good at that type of thing."

Kurt ran his hands up her back, thumb weaving between her vertebrae. "I love you."

All at once, Kitty stopped breathing. Forgot _how_ to breathe. Forgot the existence of breathing or the need of it.

"Katzchen…?"

Dropping her stomach against his, she leaned up, and kissed him—deeply, and with all the desperation of wanting a kiss to solve everything. For a moment, it seemed to work. She forgot where they were. Forgot Peter, the cure, and even the X-Men. For one precious, fleeting moment, she forgot everything except Kurt, the friction of his tongue against hers, the flexible hardness of his lean, velvet-coated muscles, and the grounding stability of his one-of-a-kind hands, holding her close.

But then she remembered about breathing, and had to pull away. And that's when she remembered she was kissing a stranger. That she was being _forced_ to kiss a stranger because of the same people who wanted to wipe mutants out as a species. And then she remembered her conversation with Wing, and realized he had been right, because she was worried about it, too—that the cure was the world trying to take away all the things that made their mutant lives special and beautiful.

Firmly, and a bit frantically, she pulled Kurt's face toward her again. As they were kissing, she slipped her hand inside the pocket of his jacket, to where he kept his image inducer. Without Kurt's knowledge or permission, she clicked it off.

When she pulled back to greet Kurt's shadow-dark indigo fur and gleaming golden eyes, she felt the shattered pieces of her heart and mind regrouping, sighing gratefully as she stroked her fingers down his beloved cheek.

"That's better…"

Kurt's regarded her quizzically. "What—"

He didn't get any further before a hoarse, frenzied voice cried out, "The devil! _The devil!_ "

It was the same woman they'd encountered earlier on their walk. She'd stopped dead in her tracks to stare at them, pale hands quaking on the handle of her shopping cart.

"The devil! Before my eyes he changed, he—The devil! _The devil!_ "

Kurt glanced down at himself. Kitty was sure nothing had ever hurt more than they truly demonic way he glared at her when he realized what she'd done.

Within moments, a small crowd of people had started to gather, emerging magically from hidden crevices of the erstwhile deserted street. Some of them tried to calm the woman with the shopping cart, who'd moved on to fractured passages from the Bible, her whole body trembling in the grip of irrational terror. Most people, however, merely stood around gaping, transfixed by the spectacle of an indigo-furred, fork-tailed demon in street clothes clutching the body of a pretty, young, seemingly human girl.

Kurt gave the gathering crowd a long, defiant look, though Kitty could tell his anger wasn't only for them—and that he wasn't just angry.

"Come on," he said. "We need to get out of here."

He teleported them well beyond the crowd and pulled her into an alley, re-activating his inducer before leading her down a cross street and into another alley, all the while moving with a careful, deliberate casualness that belied the intensity of his expression, discernible even through the veil of the inducer.

"Kurt, wait... I'm sorry… I just…"

"We'll talk about it later," he said sharply.

"But—"

" _Later_."

Kitty phased herself out of his grip, forcing him to stop. "No. If we wait, you won't—"

"I am _very_ tired of being told my mind this week."

"I'm not trying to… I just want to _explain_ why I—"

"What could _possibly_ —"

"Kurt, I was _scared_. Okay? I was…" She trailed off helplessly, eyes retreating guiltily from Kurt's angry disbelief.

" _Scared_?" he echoed. "You were… What does that even _mean_?"

She looked at him again, pleading absolution from his stranger's eyes. "It doesn't even sound rational now, but at the time, I…" she trailed off again, stymied by his false face. " _God_ … this is so _frustrating_. I can't even _talk_ to you through that thing…"

"Are appearances so important to you?"

"That's _not_ what I meant and you know it. I just wanted to _see_ you. Is it so wrong to want to be normal? Just for a _moment_?"

"Normal?" Kurt practically choked on the word. He put some space between them, thrusting his five-fingered hands into his brown hair.

"Is this about the cure?" he asked after a moment.

"Of course not! Not in—"

"Piotr thinks I secretly want it. A man I've known for _twelve years_ , and who's fought by my side for most of them, really thinks I'd be willing to endure that, just to feel normal."

Kitty frowned severely. "He _doesn't_ think that."

"Why not? Logan is my _best friend_ , and even he's never understood. He thinks the act of appearing in public wearing my real face is going to provoke some wellspring of acceptance. But these things need to be done carefully—so, so carefully. One wrong move, and curiosity can turn to... turn to..."

With a visible effort, he swallowed back his heated, emotional words. In a softer tone, he continued, "Don't you realize you could have been _hurt_ , Katzchen? Don't you realize—I can't protect you from _them_ and _me_ at the same time?"

"Protect…?" Kitty stared at him, dumbfounded. "Is that what this is about? For _fuck's sake_ , Kurt. I've been an X-Man since I was _thirteen years old_."

"And I've been _protecting_ you that _whole time_. Do you not _see_ that?"

Kitty looked away, vision growing bleary.

Kurt said, "You deserve happiness, and I can't…"

The blood was draining from her body, from her face and her chest to her feet into the concrete. "Don't do this Kurt. Don't you… _dare…_ do this…"

But Kurt had already disengaged, his voice flat as he said, "I'm sorry."

"Wow," Kitty said, fighting hard against the lump in her throat. "That is… so _incredibly_ not good enough…"

"I'll find my own way back."

"Don't go, Kurt, don't…"

But it was too late. Before she could say another word, she was alone in the alley, with only the dissipating scent of brimstone for company.

Kitty concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as she walked back to the hotel and picked up her things before hiring a cab to drive her all the way back to Westchester. An hour later, she was back in her too-familiar room, boxed in by too-familiar walls and the omnipresence of too-familiar friends. The sense that she was sinking helplessly into the past wasn't helped by the man who showed up at her door not fifteen minutes after her return.

Peter looked both enormous and tiny in her doorway, his broad shoulder offset by his compassionate eyes and furrowed brow.

"Katya. I hope this is not a bad time."

Too numb and tired to do anything else, Kitty stepped aside to let him enter.

"I am sorry to come so late, but I could not sleep, and I—"

Kitty interrupted him by collapsing into his chest, sobbing freely into his sweatshirt. Peter wrapped his arms around her, and was silent.


	8. PART TWO: Chapter Three

**~ Chapter Three ~**

_**Two weeks later…** _

It definitely wasn't a date. Kurt had made that as clear to Logan and Ororo as he had to Christine. He was just taking Christine Palmer out—he and his _team_ were just taking Christine out—to thank her for her help on the Metro General case.

His main goal was distraction. He desperately needed something—anything—to take his mind off Kitty, and how they'd left things in New York two weeks before. He hadn't seen her since, which wouldn't have been possible if they hadn't been mutually committed to avoiding each other. Kurt didn't want to avoid her, but didn't know what else to do. He was still processing his reaction to what happened outside the History Museum, fundamentally undecided about whether he should be demanding an apology or offering his own, or even which things he was most hurt by or sorry for. All he knew for sure was that the pain of Kitty's absence was getting worse, rather than better. So when Christine had called him at the Mansion—at a number that should have been unlisted—he'd found himself agreeing to see her, with Logan and Ororo as backup to keep things from getting out of hand.

He'd certainly never intended to go home with Christine after the show. But when he'd gotten himself covered in what could only be described as "ghost slime" following their unexpected rescue of an out-of-control subway train, Ororo had all but insisted on it. Kurt couldn't tell if Ororo was trying to do him a favor, or punishing him. Either way, she wasn't particularly gracious about it. Neither, for that matter, was Logan, whose narrowed blue eyes had followed him all the way from the subway tracks to the cab.

Sometime later, Kurt was stepping out of Christine's shower, free of ghost slime, but wracked with guilt. He'd gotten so used to Kitty's shower, and her welcome propensity to join him there.

Not yet ready to face Christine, he tied one of her large white towels around his waist, and turned to toward the sink, regarding his silhouette in the steam-coated mirror. The outline of his body could almost be human, though his tail, as usual, betrayed him. He could control his tail when it mattered, but without conscious effort, it did what it wanted. Now, it was swishing slowly behind his ankles, its easy rhythm defying his inner turmoil.

He wouldn't be able to imagine himself without his tail if it hadn't happened before. Years ago, Mr. Sinister had used the High Evolutionary's technology to "de-mutate" all the X-Men, including himself. Some of his teammates had embraced the change. Kurt had hated it with every fiber of his being. Every change wrought upon his body had felt like a mutilation; even gaining toes and fingers had felt like a loss. Without his fur, everything from the touch of a friend to the air on his skin had felt dull, and wrong. And without his tail, he'd been truly bereft. For a full week, he'd struggled to even walk in a straight line; the world was suddenly tilted at an angle for which he was always over-compensating in the wrong direction, a situation his too-human feet only exacerbated.

As he wiped the steam from the mirror, he remembered how he'd even hated his objectively handsome human face. He liked his face the way it was. His fangs and golden eyes might be disconcerting to some, but they were _his_ ; he wouldn't be himself without them. Kitty's words in the alley drifted back to him. She'd said she wanted to _see_ him. But what did that mean to someone who'd once been afraid of his face, not to mention his body? How could she change her mind so completely, and how completely could he trust that change?

Finally, he released a deep sigh, ran a tired hand through his damp hair, and readied himself to confront Christine.

When he entered the room, Christine was sitting on the bed in sleep shorts and a tank top, her strawberry blonde hair tied in a high ponytail. She was bent intently over her toenails, which she was painting a dramatic shade of red. The sight of a demonic mutant strolling out of her bathroom didn't seem to give her the slightest pause.

Kurt opened the conversation with the most innocuous words he could think of. "Thanks for the shower, Christine."

"Not at all, Kurt. Anything to have you wandering around my apartment half-naked."

"Right…"

The flip-side of angry mobs trying to kill him was being appreciated too well in the wrong ways. Some women were extremely interested in the idea of a man with fur, fangs, and a tail, but couldn't care less about the rest of him. Against his will, he recalled Kitty watching him, and the thoroughly chilling suspicion she was reducing him to his parts. He never should have felt that way about someone he knew and loved so well. Yet he had, and couldn't stop himself from feeling it.

He wasn't yet sure what to make of Christine. During the Metro General care, he'd admired her bravery; she was clearly someone who cared deeply about helping others. But despite her current performance of indifference, her attraction to him was equally obvious, and had been since the moment they'd met. Her own charms were just as obvious; while he hadn't allowed himself dwell on them, he'd have to be blind or dead not to notice.

"So…" Kurt began deliberately. "About tonight? I should probably tell you…"

Christine looked up, pert and expectant. "Yes?"

"In the interest of being completely candid… We're just _friends_ , Christine, right?"

Christine froze in the midst of extracting the brush from her nail polish, a drop of blood-red liquid dripping unnoticed onto her bedspread. "Wait, Kurt, are we… We're not going to have 'a talk,' are we?"

Kurt averted his eyes as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I think… I think we might be, yes. A preemptive talk."

"Well, now I'm really confused," said Christine, setting her nail polish aside. "I've dated enough men in New York City to have zero long-term expectations, and I know you have intimacy issues—at least according to VH1's 'behind the heroes special,' but—correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we _like_ each other?"

Kurt found himself drawn, despite himself, into her wide, blue gaze. "As friends, yes."

"If you say the word 'friends' one more time…"

"I'm just trying to be completely upfront with you and not… lead you on." Once again, his tail betrayed him, twitching coyly beneath his towel.

"Is this because of you and… Storm? Because I couldn't help noticing earlier tonight that…" Christine was cut off by a high-pitched beeping, emanating from the kitchen. "…Okay, what's that beeping?"

"My… my X-link in the next room," Kurt fumbled, suddenly very aware of how many seconds had gone by without him answering the call. "I should probably…"

"Of course," Christine agreed. "But, Kurt, before you do and then have to run off and fight the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants or whomever… If _you_ like me, and _I_ like you, it _can_ be just that for right now, you know."

Kurt lingered for another long moment before finally answering his X-link. As he listened to Ororo's voice telling him he was expected at the mayor's office as soon as possible, he was slightly taken aback by his sense of regret.

After hanging up, he returned his attention to Christine. "I don't suppose you have any clothes I could…"

"Not with tail holes in them."

Despite everything, his lips bent with a smile. He did so love a woman with a sense of humor. "Is it strange I sometimes forget about that?"

"It might be stranger if you were constantly thinking about it," Christine observed, offering a sympathetic smile as she rose from the bed to come to his side.

"I suppose you're right."

Turning toward her suddenly close body, Kurt found himself looking into a pair of very eager, very uncomplicated eyes. It would be so easy to accept their invitation, and feel less alone, at least for a while.

Kurt heard himself saying, "There are always traffic delays…"

"For a teleporter?" she questioned.

"Natural disasters…" he said, studying her pouting lips.

"…alien invasions…"

"…or perhaps the Avengers are fighting each other…"

Christine closed the distance, and he let her, her lips warm, wet, and soft. It felt good, and when her hands began to sweep down his back, it felt better. His tail was already curling toward her warmth, ready to pull her closer.

But for once, his tail obeyed his conscience. When it started to wind around Christine's thigh, the wrongness of the body pressed against his assaulted him like a bucket of ice water. Two weeks before, he'd been having sex with a best friend. Now, he was about to have sex with a stranger. And then all he could see behind his eyelids was Kitty's face, fighting back tears as she pleaded with him not to leave…

Quickly sensing his numbness, Christine pulled back. "Um... Kurt? I know you body is a bit _different_ , but…"

Kurt was blinking his way out of a heavy fog . "What—Oh! No, those parts are all… Well, you know… _mostly_ …"

"So then is there something I should..."

"It's not you," he assured her, the first time in two weeks such an assurance was honest. "I just… there's…" He paused to swallow, stealing himself for the answers he owed her. "The truth is, I was thinking of… someone else."

" _Oh_." Christine stepped all the way back. "Is it… Ororo?"

"No, actually. It's… someone else."

"Are you seeing someone else right now?"

Kurt did his best to avoid her eyes as he tightened the towel around his hips. "No. But, I was. Recently."

"I see," said Christine, carefully impassive. "And this is some kind of rebound thing, is that it?"

"I'm not sure, but... Maybe. A little."

Christine crossed her arms over her ample breasts. "Normally, this is where I'd tell you to get the hell out of here and never talk me again."

"That's… understandable."

"But, judging by what I've seen of you over the course of the last week, and what I knew about you before that—I'm guessing you're not usually this much of an asshole."

Kurt risked a rueful smile. "I'd like to think not. But then, I'm not all that qualified to speak in my own defense right at the moment."

They were silent for a long, awkward moment, before Kurt said, "At the extremely real risk of overplaying my hand—can I ask you something?"

"When you put it that way..."

"Would you still be interested if I weren't... you know..."

Christine regarded him quizzically. "If you weren't... a mutant?"

"I suppose..."

"Or do you mean—if you didn't have a prehensile tail, skin that feels velvet, and this whole 'demon with a cute smile and a Robin Hood complex' thing going on?"

Kurt shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he echoed, "When you put it that way..."

"Just to be clear—you're asking me, would I still like you if you were someone completely different?"

When Christine said it, it did sound ridiculous. "I... guess?"

Christine sighed. "Kurt—you know I'm attracted to you. But I'm also not in the habit of asking every cute guy I meet back to my apartment. You're more than the sum of your parts—everyone is."

Kurt met her blue gaze. "And I would never would have come here if I didn't... I really do like you, Christine. In another time, another place..."

Any hint of amusement melted from Christine's face. "That's nice, Kurt. But I don't need your pity. I'm not exactly hurting for admirers myself, you know."

Taking the hint that he probably should have stopped talking several sentences before, Kurt decided that getting back into his slime-stained clothes seemed much less unappetizing than it had a few minutes before.

[Some of Kurt's conversation with Christine is from _Nightcrawler_ #5]


	9. PART TWO: Chapter Four

**~ Chapter Four ~**

At 7:23 pm on Thursday, Kitty found herself wedged under a computer console, hopelessly tangled in wires. One hand held a crumpled, water-stained circuit diagram, and the other a mini Phillips screwdriver. The flashlight was between her teeth.

Since she'd returned, Kitty had been spending at least half her free time helping Hank streamline the Mansion's various science labs, a perpetually troublesome blend of too many different, often experimental technologies, supplied by or scrounged from the likes of Stark Industries, S.H.I.E.L.D., and even the Shi'ar. The goal was to get all of the Mansion's computers working reliably enough that someone besides Hank or Sage could make extensive use them without threatening to dismantle the delicate balance with one false keystroke or misplaced elbow. Yet after two months and many hours of labor, they still seemed a long way from that goal.

Kitty managed to do exactly two turns with the Phillips before it slipped out of the socket. Opening her mouth to swear, she dropped the flashlight and bashed her head against the metal tabletop in her reflex gesture to recover it. Hitting her head was preferable to her phasing ability kicking in, and ruining the entire computer. But it was still infuriating.

"Damn it!"

She crawled out stiffly, rubbing her sore head.

Her exclamations were common enough that Hank barely looked up from his own work. He was bent low over a cluttered workbench, soldering a tiny circuit board cradled delicately in his large, paw-like hand.

"Problems?" he intoned.

"No."

"Because it sounds like there are problems."

Kitty sighed heavily. "I'm sorry. Everything just seems to be against me today."

"Take a break. We're not in any particular hurry."

Kitty snorted as she pushed herself to her feet. "Says you. I mean, look at this place."

Her eyes swept the dimly lit room. It was a mess of mismatched consoles and view screens jury-rigged with a patchwork of welded metal panels and different-colored extension cords, not to mention a lot of hope.

"Seriously, this is like the Frankenstein's monster of labs. How do you even work in here?"

Hank replaced the soldering iron in its holster and examined his handiwork. "To each his own."

Kitty plopped herself down wearily into a three-wheeled chair across from Hank. She was exhausted, but had grown to hate taking breaks. Every break offered space to think, and when she had space to think, she thought about Kurt. Missing him felt like her guts and heart had been scooped out and strapped to her shoulders, weighing her down every moment of every day.

Missing his physical presence was bad enough; missing his friendship was worse. For a decade, Kurt had been the most consistent aspect of her life. Though she'd left the X-Men and returned more than once, other than her time at college, Kurt had been with her throughout, sleeping right down the hall or a floor above her. Though he still, technically, lived down the hall, he'd never felt further away. She'd known what she'd been risking a moment after she'd first kissed him, and realized she wanted to do it again. But she hadn't been prepared for things to go quite so badly, so quickly.

Many times over the past two weeks, she'd contemplated apologizing. But something in her rebelled. Turning off Kurt's image inducer had been wrong. Yet Kurt was also at fault, for keeping things from her that might have allowed her help him, or at least understand. As much as she was sorry for her own actions, she was also deeply hurt by Kurt's lack of trust. How could he think so little of her, after everything they'd been through? And what did the cure have to do with it? That seemed to be the catalyst for everything going wrong.

From the corner of her eye, she watched Hank work. She wondered if he'd really be happier without his mutations. She could only imagine how frustrating it must be to handle soldering irons and circuit boards in Hank's paw-like hands, not to mention typing on a conventional keyboard. Clothes would be an additional hassle; at the moment, Hank's long, unruly blue fur seemed to stick out every which way from the straining collar of his black t-shirt. Yet Hank almost certainly enjoyed his enhanced eyesight, dexterity, and strength. And Kitty now had intimate knowledge of the benefits of at least one kind of fur.

"It might not be my place," Kitty began, "but I wanted to tell you—Kurt had no right to chew you out in that meeting."

"It's alright," Hank replied, fitting the circuit board into the larger panel. "He's not wrong."

"But he's not completely right—is he?"

"This might be one of those instances in which it's impossible to be completely 'right' or 'wrong.'"

Kitty nodded vaguely. Hank's words weren't especially helpful.

Hank gave the circuit board a final, decisive nudge into its resting place and affixed her with his cat-like eyes. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"About...?"

"You and Kurt."

"How much do you know?"

"I know you were together. Now you're not. And you're both miserable."

"Have you... talked to him?"

"I didn't have to."

The knowledge that Kurt was visibly miserable made her feel better a moment before it made her feel worse.

She dropped her gaze to her hands on her thighs. "I don't know what to do, Hank."

"You could start by talking to him."

"Easier said than done—that was part of the problem."

"With you and Kurt? That... surprises me."

"Yeah, well, Kurt's nothing if not full of surprises." Reflecting on her own words, she couldn't resist a rueful smile. "Most of them good, though."

"Though the particular nature of Kurt's special appeal to the opposite sex eludes me, I've certainly observed it from afar."

"Hank! I didn't mean—"

"But I can't recall you being one of his admirers in the past. Peter Rasputin always seemed more your speed."

Resigning herself to the fact that she was now having a conversation with Hank McCoy about sex, Kitty said, "I know. But things change. People change."

"That's true. But the past remains."

"We're talked about some of it. I thought we were okay. Then this stuff with the cure happened, and suddenly... we weren't."

Hank leaned back in his chair, long, thin pupils expanding in the dim light. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"I know you were… well… _afraid_ of Kurt when you first joined the team. Would you characterize it that way?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"But you were never—at least to my knowledge—afraid of me. Why is that?"

Kitty took a moment to consider the question. "Maybe because by the time I met you, I'd already seen a lot of crazy stuff. But when I met Kurt… He was probably the craziest thing I'd seen up to that point."

She paused, remembering. It had always been about more than the fact of Kurt's appearance. "But that's not all. There's also…" she shook her head as she trailed off. "Sorry. This is… sort of hard to talk about."

"Don't worry—I'm a doctor."

Kitty was grateful for the joke, however corny. "I guess it's just that, you've always seemed to me like a—pardon the expression—'normal human' with a bunch of mutations layered on top. But Kurt is… different. Kurt's not separable from..."

"At least until the cure," Hank said softly.

"I can understand why you might want it," Kitty assured him. "Or at least, _some_ of why you might want it. Part of you wants to go _back_ to how you _were_. But for Kurt to take the cure, it would be like…"

She opened and closed her fists as she conjured a recent image of Kurt.

 _It was Saturday, and Kurt was up entirely too early._ _He was kneeling at the foot of her mattress, naked save a pair of black briefs. His shiny hair had tumbled over his forehead, and the tip of his tail was twitching pertly behind his head. His silhouette was haloed by a morning sunbeam that turned his indigo shoulders a fuzzy shade of cobalt and glinted in his fang-tipped smile._

_"What are we going to do today, mein prinzessin?"_

_"First of all," she said, kicking off the covers to jab his chest with her toes. "We're going to stay right here a while longer."_

_"Is that so..." he caught her leg in his hand, stroking up to her ankle._

_"It's_ fair _. Your sleepwalking tail kept me up half the night."_

_"Lies."_

_"How would you know? I'm the injured party here."_

_"So tell me..." he said, lips tickling her toes. "What does my tail do to you during the night?"_

_"That."_

_"Hm?"_

_"_ Tickles _me."_

_She kicked him in the chest hard enough to throw him off balance, and then sprung, assaulting him with spidery fingers in all the places she knew he couldn't stand it. Within moments, he was an uncoordinated, breathless mess, gasping for mercy. Though she was similarly breathless with laughter, she didn't let up, which earned her a mouthful of brimstone._

_Kurt re-appeared at the head of the bed, dropping clumsily onto the mattress from a foot above it._

_Kitty stared at_ _him, incredulous. "You did_ not _just teleport in my bed."_

_"You didn't leave me much choice!" he protested, face alight with mirth._

_"Now you_ really _owe me."_

_Kurt smiled serenely as he tucked his hands behind his neck, and leaned back against the headboard. "I can hardly wait."_

In the present, Kitty said, "I like him the way he is, Hank."

Hank laid a heavy, clawed hands on her shoulder. "No one's trying to _force_ the cure on anyone."

Kitty produced a small, humorless sputter of laughter. "I said that exact same thing to Wing two weeks ago. He didn't believe it, either."

Hank dropped his hand. "Is that what Kurt thinks?"

"No. Maybe. Who knows? I don't think Kurt knows what Kurt thinks. And I know I don't help."

"Are you sure about that?"

Kitty had no answer to give. How, she wondered, after a decade of friendship and two months of something more, could she still have such an incomplete picture of Kurt's thoughts and feelings?

"Kitty…?"

"Sorry, I was just... thinking."

"You know what's good for that? Going home early."

Kitty chewed her lip; that was exactly what she'd been hoping to avoid.

"You can't know what he thinks unless you talk to him," Hank observed. "And if there's anyone Kurt will talk to—it's you."

Kitty felt much younger than her twenty-two years when she asked, "You think so?"

"Please," Hank scoffed, returning his attention to his workbench. "If there's one thing I know about Kurt, it's that he's a sucker for a damsel in distress."

That elicited at least a semblance of a much-needed smile. "Thanks, Hank."

"Go," said Hank, clicking on the power supply for his laser welder. "Though I'll warn you—the fun's just about to start."

"You'll call if you...?"

"Of course."

As she rounded the first corner out of the lab, Kitty had to stop on a dime to avoid colliding with Peter's chest.

"Oh! Sorry, I… Hey, how's it going?"

Peter squeezed her shoulder apologetically as he took a half-step back, "Were you… leaving?"

"Well, I _was_ …"

"May I walk with you?"

"Uh… Sure..."

They walked in silence to the elevator, at which point they nearly collided for the second time in as many minutes as each of them gestured for the other to enter first. After an exchange of embarrassed smiles, Kitty surrendered to Peter's chivalry and preceded him through the narrow door.

Kitty punched in the dormitory level and got down to the serious business of avoiding Peter's eyes, no easy task within the close confines of the elevator.

"So why were you…"

"I wanted to see you," Peter replied. "To see how you were doing."

"I'm, you know, fine."

"Truly?"

"No. But… To be honest, Peter, this isn't really a conversation I want to have. With you. Right now."

"I understand. Forgive me."

"There's nothing to… Sure, I forgive you."

The elevator stopped, the door sliding open onto the maroon-carpeted hallway. Kitty forced a tight-lipped smile as she obeyed Peter's gesture for her to exit first.

Once they were both safely in the hallway, she asked, "How are you doing, though? Do things seem a lot different around here?"

"In some ways," said Peter. "In other ways, it is as though nothing has changed."

Kitty continued to avoid his attempt at a meaningful look. Not that it did any good. Avoiding the past was impossible, since the hallway was lined with team portraits, from Hank's original squad in their matching yellow jumpsuits to Kurt and Peter's more idiosyncratic group through her own era and past it. There was even a team picture of Excalibur, taken during their final year together, when both Peter and Amanda had joined the team. Kurt, sporting an ill-advised goatee, was at the right edge of the frame, smiling confidently with his arm wrapped protectively around Amanda's narrow waist. Kitty was at the left of the frame with Lockheed on her shoulder, half in front of Peter, who towered over all of them in his armored form.

Peter said, "There were X-Men before us, there will be X-Men after us…."

Kitty offered a small, nonchalant shrug. "Time passes."

"Does it ever bother you?"

"Does what bother me? Time?"

"Da."

"Sometimes," she conceded.

"And yet you become more beautiful with each passing day."

"Peter…"

"I am just being honest."

"I _doubt_ that."

"You should never doubt it," he said plaintively. "It is the truth."

When they reached her quarters, she was forced to turn, and look up into his clear blue eyes and lantern jaw.

"But how are you really?" she asked. "I know there's a lot to get used to."

Now, it was Peter's turn to shrug. "The biggest change is Scott."

"What about him?"

"When I was last here, he was the leader. Now, his balls wear white leather."

Kitty erupted with a burst of laughter, blindsided by Peter's unexpected crassness. She dropped her shoulder against the wall as she collected herself, wiping a tear of mirth from the corner of her eye. When her vision cleared, she saw Peter studying her seriously.

His deep Russian accent was rich with emotion as he said, "You are like the dawn when you smile."

Kitty dropped her eyes and her smile. It was all she could do to remain still as Peter bent toward her.

At the last moment, Kitty turned her face away. "Stop."

Dutifully, Peter halted his descent. "I… I am sorry. I thought that… after the other night…"

"I'm…" Kitty swallowed painfully. "I don't know what's going on right now. With me. And Kurt."

"I am sorry."

"It's okay. I should have said something before."

"I will always be here for you, Katya."

"I know."

Kitty remained stock still as he closed the rest of the distance, ducking past her lips to her cheek. His tender kiss lingered, his own cheek brushing the edge of her hair. Kitty trembled at the present and remembered sensation of his breath against her ear.

Finally, Peter withdrew, gaze lingering for one more heart-wrenching second before he turned, and began walking away.

Kitty waited until she saw him disappear around the corner before phasing through the door. Once inside, she slid her solid body down the back of it, hitting the floor with a soft "thud." Her eyes began to cloud with painful tears as she hissed quietly, to herself, under her breath, "God _damn_ it, Peter… God… _damn_ it…"


	10. PART TWO: Chapter Five

**~ Chapter Five ~**

By the time Kurt finally made it back to the Mansion, it was past midnight. And he was exhausted.

He flicked on the lights and did a quick survey of his quarters. Finding nothing amiss, he threw his jacket on a chair and began to undress, peeling his filthy shirt off his body before removing his pants. Once he was down to his underwear, he paused, trying to decide what to do next. Sleep was out of the question; as exhausted as he was, he didn't trust his dreams. He considered taking another shower, but wasn't quite sure if he could trust that, either. And then he grew angry with himself, realizing how crazy that sounded. Was every regular activity destined to remind him of Kitty until the end of time?

He swore at himself under his breath before throwing on some grey track pants and a clean white t-shirt, tossing his dirty clothes in the laundry hamper at the back of his closet.

As he closed the closet door, he did a rapid double-take that did little to protect him from the lightning-quick adamantium-enforced fist Logan aimed at his head.

The punch just missed hitting him squarely across the bridge of his nose, though its force and unexpectedness did manage to knock him clean off his feet.

Kurt groaned as he sat up, gingerly touching his face. "Unngh… What is… Were you in here the whole time…?"

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?" Logan demanded, fist clenched for an encore.

Kurt squinted up at him, in too much pain to be angry. "What is it _you_ think I'm doing?"

Logan growled, "I gave you the benefit of the doubt about the nurse honey thing because I owed you one. But then you go back to her _apartment_ with her? Did you fuck her, because God help me—"

" _No_. Not that it's any of your…" as he pushed himself to his feet, three large gobs of blood dropped from his nose onto his t-shirt, diffusing elliptically. "… schiesse… I think you broke my..."

Logan ground his teeth as Kurt tried to stem the flow of the bleeding with the back of his hand, succeeding only in staining his indigo fur maroon.

"C'mon," he grumbled. "Lemme help you with that. I'll yell at you more once you're not bleeding all over yourself."

"That's considerate of you."

Still holding his gushing nose, Kurt followed his supposed best friend to the bathroom. There, he hopped up onto the counter next to the sink, and accepted a wad of toilet paper from Logan. He wiped his hand before pressing the paper tightly under his nose, tilting his head back.

They were silent as they waited for the bleeding to stop. Kurt's head was pounding behind the bridge of his fractured nose, but the pain was almost soothing; he was thankful for anything that kept him from thinking.

Finally, Kurt experimentally, painfully wrinkled his nose, and felt dried blood. He tossed the bloody paper into the toilet bowl and pulled his stained shirt over his head before taking the damp washcloth Logan handed him. Kurt wiped the dried blood from the outside of his nose before handing the cloth back to Logan, who rinsed it in cold water, and handed it back.

"You need ice for that," Logan observed.

"Ja," Kurt agreed.

Logan leaned against the wall next to the sink, arms crossed, staring down at his cowboy boots. Kurt gazed sightlessly at the blank wall directly across from him, right eye half-closed, concentrating on the steady throb of pain spreading from his nose into his cheek.

It was Logan who broke the silence. "Sorry I hit you."

Kurt attempted a snort of almost delirious laughter, which he immediately regretted. "Ow."

"But what the hell did you think you were—"

"I don't know, I just—"

"Are you and Kitty still together?"

"I don't think so."

"But you still care about her."

"Of _course_. How could you even—"

"Sorry. I'm not… I'm sorry."

Silence reigned for another long moment, as they contemplated their shared guilt.

"We had a fight," Kurt said at last. "We were kissing—in public, in the city—and she turned off my image inducer without telling me."

"Did anything happen?"

"I got us out of there before anything _could_."

"Why would she do something like that?"

"Because she… I don't know."

"Hm."

"I love being with her, Logan. But sometimes, she _looks_ at me, and I can't tell what she's _thinking_ …"

"Maybe she likes what she sees."

Kurt looked at him, his blood-stained hand and the damp, discolored washcloth obscuring half his face.

Logan said, "Maybe the fact you don't trust that is part of the problem."

Kurt shook his head as he dropped the washcloth into the sink. "Christine kissed me, but I couldn't... I thought of Kitty, and I..."

He closed his eyes as he released a weary breath. In the darkness, he conjured a recent memory.

 _He exhaled a sigh of contentment as his eyes blinked open onto Kitty's radiant face._ _She was stretched out next to him on the bed in a sports bra and underwear, her right hand stroking down his back._ _Her hazel eyes were bright and glistening, her auburn hair a wild but wonderful tangle. Lately, she'd been straightening her hair, but after a night of passion, it generally reverted it its natural state. Kurt liked to think it was her true self coming out in the private moments she shared with him, and only with him._

_He greeted her with a sleepy smile. "You're up early."_

_"Special training session. I'm supposed to be getting dressed."_

_"But...?"_

_"You're here," she said, as though it explained everything._

_Her fingers started again on his neck as she said, "I wish I could know what it feels like."_

_"You must have some idea," he teased, closing his eyes to enjoy the sensation._

_"I'm starting to," she agreed. She used her whole hand when she reached the center of his back, sweeping down firmly, slowly, exactly the way he liked._

_At the top of his tail, she paused. "May I?"_

_When he opened his eyes, he found her gaze waiting for his. That made his reply easy. "Yes."_

_She wrapped her fingers all the way around his tail, and continued, maintaining the same slow, deliberate pace. He let himself go limp in her hand, and focused on her touch, feeling in her familiar fingers a mix of fascination and reverence that made his heart skip with giddiness. He never could have dreamed Kitty Pryde caressing his tail could make him feel so safe, and so loved._

_As her fingertips finally slipped off the spade of his tail, he reached for her, his tail making a tight, tender coil around her wrist._

_"I think you're going to be late."_

In the present, Kurt said, "After all we've been though, I shouldn't be _able_ doubt her. What is _wrong_ with me, that I can't trust _Kitty_ , of all people..."

He took a moment to force down a swallow, then continued. "I haven't felt this confused since I was teenager, trying to work up the courage to finally say something to Amanda."

"Don't tell me Pete was right."

"You know I'd never want the cure. But things did seem easier when we didn't have a choice."

"They always do."

"Do you ever wonder," Kurt began, watching his tail twitch between his ankles, "what your life would have been like? How it might have been different, if you weren't…"

"Well, first of all, I'd be dead."

Kurt had nothing to say to that. In the interests of peacekeeping, Logan offered, "What about you?"

"It was because of my mutation that I grew up at the circus, and my father is a mutant demon, so… I can't really imagine anything else."

"Not worth thinkin' about."

Kurt nodded sadly, gaze wandering away toward the walls, while Logan shifted his weight, crossing and re-crossing his arms over his chest.

After a moment, Logan said, "Besides—if I weren't a mutant, I'd never have met you. And that's gotta be worth somethin'."

Kurt swallowed, felt his throat catch, and wondered how his day could get any worse. His tail curled around his ankle as he dropped his head, chewing the inside of his lip.

"Kurt…" Logan's voice was soft, pleading. "Elf, you can't… What can I..."

"Nothing, nothing…"

Logan uncrossed his arms and moved closer, reaching up to squeeze the side of Kurt's neck, massaging the connecting tendons with his thumb. Kurt released a shuddering sigh under his friend's touch. When Logan's hand slipped further down his back, he could no longer fight the pain, and surrendered to his need to be steadied under Logan's heavy, sure hands. He dropped the less painful side of his face against his friend's collarbone as Logan wrapped his arms around his shoulders, squeezing gently. For several slow heartbeats, Kurt allowed himself to drift, inhaling the sharp smell of Logan's skin, his breath matching the swell and empty of the older man's chest.

When they eventually parted, Kurt left behind a trail of blood and moisture on the collar of Logan's plaid shirt.

"You okay?" Logan asked, still holding Kurt's bare shoulders.

Kurt's attempt at a deep breath ended up being more of a dried-blood snuffle. "Ja."

"It's not too late. Go to her. Tell her how you—"

Kurt shook his head, staring at Logan's chest. "Nein, it was always too late, Logan. It was always…"

"Let her decide that."

"Ja."

" _Talk_ to her."

"Ja."

"Now."

"I... Ja."

After an awkwardly still moment, Kurt cleared his throat. "Um... Logan, I need to..."

Logan released Kurt's body and waited for him outside the bathroom as Kurt did his best to clean himself up, washing away the last of the dried blood from his face, hands, and chest.

After he emerged from the bathroom and began to pull on yet another fresh t-shirt, Logan said, "So you're gonna talk to her?"

"I can't let things go on like this," Kurt confirmed. "Obviously."

"Good. But get your nose set first—you don't want it to heal crooked."

"We wouldn't want that," Kurt deadpanned.

"Gotta take care of the money maker," Logan quipped back.

"I could have used that sentiment twenty minutes ago."

"I'm—"

"I know." He'd forgiven Logan for worse, and knew he'd do so again. Being Logan's best friend meant accepting the risks of his passion.

"Then again," said Logan, "smart girls like Kitty appreciate a little character."

Kurt almost smiled. "I told her recently she's the smartest woman I know."

Logan grunted. "No wonder she likes you."

In a smaller voice, Kurt said, "She's smart enough to do better."

"No one's that smart."

"Is that meant to be insulting to her, or complimentary to me?"

There was no hint of teasing in Logan's tone when he replied, "You know how I feel about you, Kurt."

Kurt looked at him, studying his unruly black hair, stern mouth, wide, stubble-flecked cheeks, and incongruously soft eyes. "Yes," he agreed seriously. "I do." The benefit of Logan's passion was that he loved his friends as intensely as Kurt had ever been loved by anyone.

"So don't let me down."

Kurt finally managed a weary smile. "Right."

As Logan turned to leave, Kurt called after him. "And Logan?"

"Yeah."

"Don't forget I'm still pissed at you," he said, echoing Logan's words from two months before.

"Wouldn't expect anything less."

And then he was gone, leaving Kurt alone with the dilemma of which member of the Mansion's medical team would be least angry about being disturbed at one in the morning to help set a broken nose. It wasn't a difficult question. He already owed Hank an apology and at least a dozen favors, but he was still the obvious answer.


	11. PART TWO: Chapter Six

**~ Chapter Six ~**

Kitty knew the knock on her door just past two in the morning had to be one of three things: Peter, Kurt, or an emergency. When she wrenched open the door, she was determined to be angry at any of the three possibilities. Yet when she confronted Kurt, with a white bandage over his nose and a large, fresh bruise around his squinting right eye, her resolve instantly melted.

"Oh my God—are you okay? What happened?"

"Logan," Kurt said simply, stepping past her into the room.

Kitty closed the door after him. "What—really?"

"It's fine."

"Okay..."

Kurt walked to the center of the darkened room, and stopped. Kitty, too, felt rooted to the floor, studying Kurt's back and the languid swish of his tail.

Finally, she said, "I really hope I'm not the first one to tell you this, but you and Logan do _not_ have a healthy relationship."

"I'm not here to talk about me and Logan."

"Yeah. I figured. That would've been too easy."

Staring at the floor, Kurt shook his head slowly. "I don't even know where to begin."

"Then let me," said Kitty. She closed the distance between them, and laid a hand on Kurt's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I am so, so, sorry…"

"You don't... I'm the one who should be apologizing. I shouldn't have left. I should have stayed and at least _tried_ to explain..."

"And I shouldn't have put you in that position."

"No," he agreed. "But I can't expect you to understand if I don't..." Kitty felt the long breath he inhaled, and released. "I need to tell you something. It's about Florida."

"Can we sit down first?" she asked.

Together, they looked toward the bed, then the love seat, and settled on the reading nook in the window frame. They sat facing each other with their knees raised, bare feet almost but not quite touching, the black window cold against her right shoulder, and Kurt's left one. Kurt's forearms rested on his knees, and his tail looped around his foot, uncharacteristically still.

"It was my first trip to America," Kurt began. "I was eighteen. I answered a promoter's invitation to perform at a circus in Florida because... Well, because I wanted to see the world. And because I was foolish. I didn't understand, then, how deeply they can hate and fear people like me—people like us."

He paused, studying his hands where they dangled between his knees. "I genuinely thought the promoter wanted me for my skills on the trapeze. But when I arrived, he stuck a syringe in my next, and knocked me unconscious. When I woke up, I was in a cage—the kind of cage an animal lives in, lined with straw, with food and water in bowls on the floor."

Kitty fought hard against an almost desperate need to touch him, made worse by his visible injuries. "Oh Kurt.." she breathed, heart twisting in her chest. "I can't _believe_..."

"Please," he said gently. "I'm almost done. It took me two weeks to escape. A young boy—a mutant—helped me. Because of the drugs, I don't remember most of it, which is a blessing of sorts. But sometimes, little pieces come back to me—looks, and stares, of fear, disgust, and hate. To be reduced to that... to be _watched_ like that... it's not easy to forget."

Kitty struggled to absorb the revelation. Once, many years ago, she'd helped save Kurt from an angry mob. That had been bad. But what he was describing now was a whole other level of trauma, extending from an even more intense type of hatred. She felt thirteen again, trying and failing to grasp an adult world that seemed as frightening and unpredictable as any supervillain. She couldn't imagine how Kurt could live with such a memory, when she could barely stand the pain of hearing him recount it.

"I've never told anyone that story," he said. "Amanda knows, but I never talked to her about it."

No longer able to control her need to comfort him, she touched his knee, and squeezed, steadying her trembling fingers against his warmth.

Kurt covered her hand with his. "It's okay," he assured her.

" _You're_ comforting _me_ , now?" she joked, feebly.

"I don't like hurting you."

"If you can handle living it, I can certainly handle _hearing_ about it."

"That's not the point."

"So what is?"

"The point is—I don't want you to _have_ to hear it."

"Kurt—I'm not a little girl."

"I definitely know that."

"So then what's—"

"I love you, Katzchen. But there have been times, lately, when you've made me feel..." as he trailed off, he withdrew his hand.

Kurt's withdrawal felt more guilty than cold. But Kitty felt the coldness anyway, like an arrow piercing her throat. "Oh my God... the thing at the hotel..."

"Yes," he confirmed.

"I had no idea."

"I know."

"If I'd known—"

"I _know_."

"I'll never say anything like that again."

"That's not..." Kurt's jaw flexed as he struggled to find the right words. "It's bigger than that. It's a problem with me. If I could fix it, I would. My whole life, I've been trying. This is the best I've been able to do."

Kitty forced down a swallow, and said, "Then let me help you. We'll figure it out. Together. Like we've always done."

"This is different."

"Why?"

"Because I can't risk losing you. I can't..." Kurt's own voice failed him. He dropped his gaze as his tail twitched against his foot.

"Don't you think I feel that, too?" she asked.

Kurt nodded vaguely.

"In Chicago," she said, "when I kissed you... That next week, after you left, was one of the worst weeks of my life. That includes the week after the X-Men died. And the week after Peter died."

"I'm—"

"Let me finish," she interrupted, voice getting stronger. "The X-Men dying, Peter dying... Those things were awful. More than awful—there's no words to describe that kind of pain. Both times, I thought it was the end of the world. When you left was like that, except it was also my fault. Or at least, it _felt_ like my fault. And you weren't dead, you were just... gone. Which somehow made it worse. After almost ten years of being there whenever I needed you, you just, suddenly... weren't."

"Oh Katzchen..." Kurt seized both of her hands in his, open and bruised golden eyes begging her forgiveness. "I'm sorry. I am _so sorry_."

"I know," she said. "But it happened. And you did it again two weeks ago."

His remorse was palpable when he said, "I can't risk hurting you like that again."

"Then _don't_. Talking can hurt. But it hurts less than you running away."

Kurt looked down at their joined hands. "Do you remember that first year with Excalibur?"

"Of course."

"Those first weeks after my coma... You accused me of having a death wish, and you were right—there was a part of me that wished I'd died with the X-Men. You yelled at me, and I deserved it, though at first I resented it. What right did you, Kitty Pryde, and youngest and newest X-Man, have to tell me how to grieve the death of my friends? If I wanted to die in the Danger Room, that was no one's business but my own."

He flashed her a small, self-deprecating smile. "Twenty-three-year-old Kurt Wagner thought he was _very_ mature."

"Clearly," she returned, offering a sympathetic smile.

He continued, "Then the Technet showed up, and when you took charge, I understood—I should have been proud of the change in you, not angry. From that point on, I was. But when the Technet took you, I also realized what I owed you. You were brave, and you were strong. But you still needed me. And I needed to do better— _be_ better—to be worthy of protecting you. For the next three years—that became my purpose."

"You did a good job," she told him. "I've always felt safe with you. At least until..."

"Now you see the problem."

Kitty thought about so many years of Saturdays, Thursdays, and Tuesdays, sharing a couch, or a table, or plane ride, somewhere, anywhere, with Kurt, warm in the glow of knowing they'd helped each other, and the city, and the world, make it through another day.

She said, "I'm willing to take the chance."

"But maybe... I'm not."

Kitty met his golden gaze. "Are you breaking up with me?"

"I'm not sure..." he released her hands a second time as his gaze flickered between their feet and the window. "Maybe."

Kitty stared blindly at his chest, not seeing so much as remembering the nearly-smooth dimple of his collarbone, which she'd been kissing just three weeks before. "I don't know if I can just... go back."

"Me neither. But it might be easier now than if we..."

"What if we just... took some _time_..."

Without conviction, he repeated, "Maybe."

In the silence that followed, Kitty could hear the ironic ticking of the old analogue clock that hung above her desk. "But how much time?"

Kurt offered a pathetic shrug. "Time moves strangely around here. Sometimes, it seems to go very slowly, and sometimes..."

"Yeah," she managed. Her tone was cold, her body numb.

"So I guess this is..."

"I guess so."

"I'll still be here. If you need me."

"Depending on what I need you for," she observed flatly.

He didn't have an answer for that.

"And what if one of us is interested in someone else?" she asked. She'd seen the way Christine Palmer looked at him, not to mention Ororo, and Amanda.

"I want you to be happy," he replied.

She wanted to tell him that he made her happy. That she'd never been happier than she'd been during the good parts of the past two months. But she didn't know how to make him believe her. Many years ago, Amanda had unintentionally warned her about the impossibility of fixing Kurt's broken heart. She'd never understood or believed her—until now.

The next hour was a blur. At some point, Kurt had left, returning to his own quarters, an ironic 100 yards down the hall from her own. And Kitty had lain down on her bed to stare at the ceiling, hating the X-gene, and the cure, and the capriciousness of time, which sometimes put people exactly where they needed to be, but just as often didn't. If she'd met Kurt later, or earlier, or at any other time, in any other life—maybe, just maybe, things could have been different.

And then, suddenly, she stopped being angry, or sad, or helpless. She wasn't a character in a tragic romance. She was an X-Man. And X-Men made their own rules, and specialized in the impossible. Kurt had helped teach her that, until she'd been old enough to teach him. Over the course of the past decade, she'd saved him as often as he'd saved her. And just as she'd done outside the Danger Room after he'd woken up from his coma, she sometimes needed to save him from himself.

When Kitty finally fell into a brief and restless sleep, she wasn't quite happy, but was at least unafraid, anticipating the day ahead.

[The story about the circus in Florida appears in _Nightcrawler_ #9. The encounter with the Technet occurs in _Excalibur: The Sword is Drawn_.]


	12. PART TWO: Chapter Seven

**~ Chapter Seven ~**

For several seconds, Kurt heard the insistent knocking in what he was sure was a dream. It was his least favorite type of dream, in which he was both alone and in pain. When he finally woke up, it was worse, because he realized it wasn't just his cheek and nose that hurt—it was also his heart, which felt beaten and bruised by his own regretful actions.

Whoever was at the door didn't seem to care about his pain. They kept knocking, with barely a gap between repeated flourishes. He rolled himself groggily to his feet, padded to the door, and answered it.

His sleep-cloudy eyes blinked, disbelievingly, at Kitty Pryde. She was wearing an oversize pink sweater that clung to one shoulder and dropped off the other, her wavy hair piled into a messy bun. Her arms were filled with a large tray displaying platters under decorative silver hoods.

Within a moment, his surprise at seeing her at his door mere hours after he'd broken up with her was overwhelmed by his gladness that she was.

"I guess this isn't a dream?" he asked.

"If it is," she replied brightly, "we're having the same one."

Kurt tried to smile. His cheek protested, transforming it into a wince.

"Well," said Kitty, "not _quite_ the same one. Good news is, I've got pancakes. And painkillers."

Kurt managed a modified smile as he pulled the door wider. "In that case—please, come in."

Kitty all but skipped into the room, looked for somewhere to set down the tray, and settled for his desk. Kurt knew he should be finding them some chairs, but when she turned to face him, he could only look at her.

She was standing in front of the late-morning light streaming in through the diamond-shaped windowpanes. The light shone on her clean cheeks and gleamed in her hair, fuzzing the edges with hints of red. She wasn't posing; Kitty Pryde never posed. She simply stood, proud, but real, not the same person she'd always been, but exactly the person he'd known she could be when she'd first found a place in his heart, so many years before.

"So," she said after a moment. "I've been thinking."

"About what?"

"About you, and me, and Peter, and the cure, and everything else. And I realized—we've been taking the wrong lesson from all of it."

"Oh?"

"The lives we live... None of us knows how much time we might have. The risk of losing you feels like the world ending. But if the world _was_ ending tomorrow, I know exactly how I'd want to spend my last day."

"Doing pilates with Emma?"

Kitty frowned. "Did you really make a _joke_ when I'm trying to—"

"Yes, but... I make jokes when I'm nervous. Or happy."

"Which one is this?"

"Both," he replied. "But mostly the second."

"We had a fight," she said, tone becoming serious as her eyes dropped to the carpet. "And we both did stuff we shouldn't have. Those things have happened before. But we're still here. We've survived all this time, against all these odds—it's what we _do_."

She looked up again as she said, "I don't want to be scared anymore, Kurt. I'm not any good at it. For as long as I've known you—you've never been good at it, either."

For three more heartbeats, Kurt continued to gaze into her sun burnished glory, struck speechless by the depths of her trust. Peter was right—she was the bravest of them all.

Finally, like a man in the right kind of dream, he walked weightlessly into the light. He found himself in her eyes as he said, "Spend the day with me, Katzchen."

Kitty's eyes flickered down, and then up. When they found their way back to his, they sparkled with moisture. "Only, you know, if you've got _time_..."

Kurt stepped all the way into her orbit, close enough to feel the warmth of the morning passing through her onto him. He wanted to fall to his knees at her feet, but settled for a reverent stroke of her cheek, fingertips catching the sun in her hair. "For you—I'll make time. Today... and tomorrow."

Kitty replied with the only thing brighter than the sun: her own rare but radiant smile.

Finally, chairs were located, and syrup was poured, along with generous cups of coffee. Out of want and necessity, they sat close, ankles touching under their makeshift table, Kurt's tail hooked around the leg of Kitty's chair. There were more things that needed to be said; more apologies and confessions that needed to be made, more fears and fantasies that needed to be voiced, and understood. But it could wait; for now, they were sure they had plenty of time.

"Did you make these?" Kurt asked.

"Logan helped."

Kurt stopped his forkful of pancakes a precarious inch from his mouth. "Really?"

"In a supervisory capacity."

He allowed his fork to continue. They tasted good, except... "Is there... whiskey in them?"

"Logan's contribution."

"Naturally."

Several bites later, Kitty wet her thumb, and reached for his face. "Here, you've got a little..."

Kurt winced in anticipation of her touch. "Please be gentle."

She was. Her thumb swept the side of his mouth, then skirted his bottom lip, all the way to the other side, as which point he ducked to catch it, tasting the sweetness of her touch in more ways than one. When she drew her hand back, he'd forgotten all about eating, and had very nearly forgotten the fact that half his face felt exactly like it had been stepped on.

"How does it look?" he asked, gesturing to his nose.

"Terrible."

"Here's hoping it heals straight."

"You'll pull it off, either way."

He returned her playful smile, knowing she meant it, despite her teasing.

Turning his attention to his coffee, he asked, "So what do you want to do today?"

Her lips twitched below a familiar look in her beloved hazel eyes as she replied, "As little as possible."

Compelled by powerful but welcome forces beyond his control, Kurt found himself drawn back into her gaze, wholly forgetting the pain in his nose and cheek as surely as he'd forgotten his other type of hunger a few moments before. "I think that can be arranged..."

He didn't reach her lips before the entire building seemed to heave with a massive electrical surge. The lights went out, then flickered back on in their dim and flashing emergency mode, accompanied by a resounding, repeating klaxon.

They both looked once around the strobe-lit room, then back at each other. Kurt shrugged. "...or not?"

"Wonder what it is this time," Kitty groaned, stealing a final gulp of coffee before pushing herself to her feet.

Kurt used his own coffee to swallow two small blue pills. "Perhaps Logan's kitchen experiments continued in your absence."

"Think we have time to change?"

"The faster we deal with it, the faster we can get back to breakfast." He held out his hand, palm up. "My lady...?"

Kitty sighed dramatically as she accepted his hand. "Just this once. In the interests of efficiency." 

Their eyes met when their hands did. In a moment, a lifetime passed between them. A hundred times, or maybe a thousand, they'd dived off that cliff together, from calm into crisis, and back again. Together, they saw every time they'd saved each other, and every time they almost hadn't. But every time, they'd tried, with all the strength and passion they were lucky enough to have. And they'd never once regretted it. Today would be the same. So would all the days they had left.

They exchanged a quick smile, small enough to be secret from everyone but themselves. Then, with a "BAMF," they were gone.

They didn't make it back to breakfast. But they did make it back, the same way they left—together.

**~ The End...? ~**

* * *

_**A/N:** Thanks for reading! If you read this story in its original iteration, I hope you like the new ending. I was in the mood for a little wish fulfillment—hope you agree ;)_


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